5th Week of Easter (S)
Why does the world hate us? We answer that question by answering another: why does the world hate Christ? Simply put: the world hates Christ b/c he is everything the world isn't. Selfless love, abundant mercy, fervent hope, and the only means of rescue from sin and death. For the world, hatred, revenge, despair, disobedience, and death are all means of gaining and maintaining power over others. The world manages its slaves through fear, jealousy, envy, and wrath. And it knows that it must keep its slaves hypnotized with the perishable things under its control: food, sex, drink, entertainment, drugs, and violence. When the disordered abuse of these things isn't enough to corral the mob, the world can always turn to racial and ethnic strife; political bickering; ideological manipulation; and good, old-fashioned lying and propaganda. The world – as it shows itself – is based on an illusion: that what is fundamentally perishable can be made imperishable through power. IOW, with the accumulation of wealth and influence, all temporary things can be made permanent. Creatures can be their own creators. Christ's arrival into human history broke that illusion, pulled back the curtain on The Lie and reminded his brothers and sisters that we do not belong to the world; therefore, the world cannot/will not love us. What motives the world's delusion-to-power and control is the fact that it does not believe in the One Who sent the Christ. It can't believe in the One Who sent the Christ b/c if it did, then it wouldn't be the world. It would be of Christ, a participant in the transcendental life of the Blessed Trinity. There would be no necessity in its hatred for Christ and his holy family. Since we are participants in the life of Divine Love, our mission is to be signposts/witnesses/examples of divine love over and against the lies of the world; that is, we are counterexamples to the world's illusion of power. Mercy is not power. Love is not power. Hope and faith and forgiveness are not power. These are all divine gifts freely given to be freely re-gifted to anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see. And b/c we are engines of grace in a world drunk on deception, we are hated. Our response cannot be to hate in turn. We can't hate the world b/c our job is to save the world. You cannot hate what you are bound to save. Therefore, know that The Boss was persecuted first and take whatever persecution you may suffer as a sign that you are doing your job well.
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