Burn the House Down

One

In the 1st Letter of John chapter 4, we are warned to be on guard against the enemies of Christ and against the world:

It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust; test them, to see if they come from God, there are many false prophets now, in the world. You can tell the spirits that come from God by this: every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh is from God; but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus is not from God, but is the spirit of Antichrist, whose coming you were warned about. Well, now he is here, in the world…This is how we can tell the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.

The spirit of falsehood, in other words, wrong or evil ideas are dangerous because they lead to evil choices and actions that are destructive to the individual, the family and society. Marxist ideology is evil and destructive. But so is “laissez-faire” or leave us alone capitalism. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning (Marxist socialism) perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace (laissez-faire capitalism) fails social justice. Contraception, abortion, homosexual acts and gender fluidity – these are all bad ideas and destructive actions. We are right to have an aversion toward these ideas, hate them and work to prevent them from having any place in our society. We must judge ideas and actions; but we must not hate or condemn persons. This is a crucial distinction because God is love and we will be judged by our love of persons, including enemies.

Two

We judge ideas and actions. This is good or this is evil. We must never accept and tolerate evil ideas and actions out of some false form of tolerance. But we must love persons. We can never condemn persons, because we can never know the other two parts of morality: their intentions or their circumstances. Therefore, we can only judge ideas and actions but not persons. To do this we must be able to separate ideas, actions and persons.

Why is this so important? Matthew 7: 1-5

'Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the plank in your own? How dare you say to your brother, "Let me take the splinter out of your eye", when all the time there is a plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

Three

The devil is the absolute destroyer. He wants everyone to fear, hate and despise everyone else so that we destroy each other and the world. It is that simple. He doesn’t care who burns the house down – just that it burns.

1 John 4:7 My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love…My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another…Anyone who says, 'I love God', and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen. So this is the commandment that he has given us, that anyone who loves God must also love his brother.

Who do you fear hate or despise?

Pray for us sinners…

Four

John of the Cross writes: At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love. Learn to love as God desires to be loved and abandon you own ways of acting. Sayings 60

Am I growing in the virtue of love? Love is not an emotion. Love is the choice to think, speak and do what is good for another person.

The Golden Rule given by Jesus is this: Always treat others as you would like them to treat you. That is love. Am I growing in love?

Am I growing humility? In patience? In the acceptance of suffering with peace? I am growing in compassion and mercy towards the defects of others?

This is how God measures growth. Am I growing in love?

Five

A Daily Examination of Conscience is a good start to growth in love

Here is a simple method called 3-2-1:

a.    Begin by finding 3 ways your day went well. These should include ways you resisted temptation. Thank God for his blessings and graces of the day.

b.    Next, review 2 problematic ways you could have done better that day. If you have failed to complete any resolutions, wasted too much time entertaining yourself, done something you shouldn’t have, failed to do something you should. The point is not to beat yourself up, but to find what weaknesses the enemy is exploiting in you.

c.     Finally make 1 resolution for the following day that will help to counteract weaknesses by practicing the opposite virtue.

Edith Stein wrote

If up to now, a person has been more or less contented with himself, the time for that is over. He will do what he can to change the unpleasant things he finds in himself, but he will discover quite a bit that can’t be called beautiful and yet will be nearly impossible to change. As a result he will slowly become small and humble, increasingly patient and tolerant toward toe specks in his brothers’ eyes now that he has so much trouble with the beam in his own. Eventually, he will be able to look at himself in the unblinking light of the divine presence and learn to entrust himself to the power of the divine mercy.