WHO DO YOU LOVE TO HATE? terry fenwick

          I have been trying to write a blog on Who Do You Love To Hate.   It started because of my own personal problem but it really can be for all of us.  No Christian is allowed to hate any person.  We all know that, right?  Sure we do. 

          Hate is not what GOD does. He hates sin but he does not hate the sinner.  Simple as that. We never like that statement much but it is so true. 

          Now, often what we do in the beginning is hate righteously what someone does, or does not do, and in our righteousness we become self-righteous.  We tend to love hating what this person has done.  We would never do what this person has done.  We know it grieves GOD.  We just keep hating and hating.  Ah! Then the hate rolls over on the person and just covers him or her with hatred.  Spews right out of you onto them.  Don’t worry, you have more hate where that came from. 

          Nada. Can't hate him, can’t hate her.
  
          Just can't.
  
          Can't hate anyone.  

          And hate gradually shows in our anger or comments when we can't say something good.   In the beginning maybe we say a few good things to balance out the hate, but soon we no longer can think of anything good.  We have to learn to say something graced.  Here we have it, beautifully graced.  Graced but not that I am so wonderful – not that at all, but admitting I am only good at anything because of Grace.  And yes, we all know it is not even our own grace – but it is the Grace of GOD.  We know this, don't we? 

This happened to me because of a political person.  Sound familiar?  I truly hated what this person did, and said,  and did not do, and did not say. And I was right.  I was so righteous in this-so very right.  But,  I was deeper and deeper in my anger and then the flaunting of this person’s Catholicism just did me in.   It never stopped.  Never slowed down.  It just got worse and worse and one day, I realized, 

I hated the person.
  
I could actually hear myself think it – not say it – but think it.

“I hate this Person!  I hate this Person!  I really hate this Person!”

The minute I did, I knew that I was in deep trouble.  Dark water trouble.  Almost drowning trouble.  I repented but it was not enough.  The LORD quickly gave me an assignment to match the hate.  I knew without hearing His voice that I was to pray for this person to come HOME to the Church every day of my life, on my knees, until the day I died. 

There was no discussion about this.   I promised the Lord, not vowed, not suppose to vow, but I promised Him I would do just that.  I would pray this person HOME to the Church.  I would pray for this person every night - on my knees - to come HOME to the Church. "Bring the person Home, Lord."  That is HIS WILL and it is a good prayer.  

           

          The first night I prayed through gritted teeth - but I prayed!   The second night I crawled into bed and prayed a little better.  The third night, I smiled and thought of the person,  and the fourth night,  I heard my own voice say, “I love this Person, with the Love of the Lord!”  The fifth night?  You will like this; the TV was on, but muted and I raised up after praying for this person and there was the person’s face full–screen on my TV screen.

          I saw the face and laughed and smiled and loved GOD so much.  I loved myself a bit more, too.  It was working for me and He would make it work for the Person, when the time was right.                              
       

          Are you laughing?   I wanted to write this before Ash Wednesday to hit a few million people over the head before the Ashes to simply ask, “Who Do You Love to Hate?”  Get over it.  Start praying for this person.  Or persons?

Terry Fenwick 

Blessed Mary - Pope Benedict XVI

by Woody Miller 

BLESSED MARY Mary is so interwoven in the great mystery of the Church, that she and the Church are inseparable, just as she and Christ are inseparable. Mary mirrors the Church, anticipates the Church in her person, and in all the turbulence that affects the suffering, struggling Church, she always remains the Star of salvation. Pope Benedict XVI

Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict

                                                        She Who Loved More Could Do More 

     Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict, had been consecrated to God from her earliest years. She was accustomed to visiting her brother once a year. He would come down to meet her at a place on the monastery property, not far outside the gate.

  One day she came as usual and her saintly brother went with some of his disciples; they spent the whole day praising God and talking of sacred things. As night fell they had supper together.

  Their spiritual conversation went on and the hour grew late. The holy nun said to her brother: “Please do not leave me tonight; let us go on until morning talking about the delights of the spiritual life.” “Sister,” he replied, “what are you saying? I simply cannot stay outside my cell.”

  When she heard her brother refuse her request, the holy woman joined her hands on the table, laid her head on them and began to pray. As she raised her head from the table, there were such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated. Sadly he began to complain: “May God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” “Well,” she answered, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me and return to your monastery.”

  Reluctant as he was to stay of his own will, he remained against his will. So it came about that they stayed awake the whole night, engrossed in their conversation about the spiritual life.

  It is not surprising that she was more effective than he, since as John says, God is love, it was absolutely right that she could do more, as she loved more.

  Three days later, Benedict was in his cell. Looking up to the sky, he saw his sister’s soul leave her body in the form of a dove, and fly up to the secret places of heaven. Rejoicing in her great glory, he thanked almighty God with hymns and words of praise. He then sent his brethren to bring her body to the monastery and lay it in the tomb he had prepared for himself.

  Their minds had always been united in God; their bodies were to share a common grave.

   From the books of Dialogues by Saint Gregory the Great, Pope

J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Imagination

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973)

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work," wrote Tolkien, "unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like "religion", to cults or practices, in the Imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament ... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth.... which every man's heart desires" " - JRR Tolkien