"Hate" The Most Heinous Evil we face

“Tree of Life Synagogue, Squirrel Hill, Two Mosques in New Zealand, A Black church in Charleston, South Carolina”, to name a few where innocent worshipers were gunned down because of hate.  

The incident of Coptic Christians beheaded by Islamist Radicals in Libya, and who can forget Bashar Hafez al-Assad using chemicals to murder his own people in Syria? 

Don’t ask “where is God?”  Rather we need to look into our own persona and ask ourselves what has happened to the belief in God and our own faith in seeking Him in our minds and Churches.

Schools have been coerced to eliminate prayers, the Pledge of Allegiance because God is mentioned, and how many want the Ten Commandments removed from public areas because God’s name is there.   

Take a good look at the pews in your own place of worship.  Are they filled now as in years past?  See around us the pattern of morality and society does nothing when the morals have declined to a point of degradation at every corner.  None of us may be excused for not doing enough, speaking out in defense of purity, and if we are Roman Catholic perhaps returning to the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.  

There is no diminishment to the crowds receiving Christ in the Eucharist, but has it become just another part of the Mass we participate in or do we really receive Him in a very spiritual manner?  Do we really believe this is the Body and Blood of Christ and not a memorial to his Passion?

Will the increase in our own worship stop this maddening result of hate?  Not if it is just our effort.  But, if and when the world begins to find God in their own lives, making Him the center of their lives, and the center of all society, then He will become the impetus in our modern world.  Then will the power of Almighty God become the Way, Truth, and Life of a society gone awry.  

“Rend your hearts and not your garments.  Now return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and relenting in evil”.  Joel 2:13

“but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.”  Nehemiah 1:9

“From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them, Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”  Malachi 3:7

Three of many verses in Sacred Scripture imploring us to seek and find God’s Providence and He will certainly restore the loss from Satanic influence we find running rampant throughout society.

Lent is the perfect time to return to church, ask God for intervention in our crippled society, and by all means become part of the solution to heal this world and rid our lives of fear.

Ralph B. Hathaway, Lent 2019