On a recent morning my car radio
reported a story of a group of young people who had stolen a statue of Jesus
from a Catholic church somewhere in Oklahoma.
There was a video from the church surveillance camera showing two cars
pulling up, 5 persons getting out (apparently teen-agers), and then stealing
the statue from the garden, getting back in their vehicles and departing.
This wasn’t just a free-standing
statue, stolen as a result of a night of over-indulgence; it was a corpus of
Jesus on the cross. The crime was
clearly pre-meditated as they had tools to pry the body off the cross.
My first reaction was anger: how could
anyone do such a thing!? Is nothing
sacred?! It’s a direct affront to
Catholicism and religious faith in general!
Punishment is required!
Then I calmed down a bit.
My second reaction was to feel sorry for the
perpetrators of the crime. What kind of
values do these young people have? Do
they have any moral values at all? Are
they so unhappy in their lives that they have to try and hurt others with their
mischief? It must be difficult to go
through life without being centered in Someone Who gives meaning and purpose to
life.
Then I calmed a bit more.
My third reaction was to wonder if the
individuals didn’t mean to be hurtful as much as funny. Young people sometimes are fond of pranks and
the reaction they elicit. (Older people
are sometimes fond of pranks and the reaction they elicit.) I can remember being young (quite some time
ago) and what I laughed at then isn’t what I laugh at now. I prefer to hope that I’ve matured somewhat
in my outlook and now realize that many forms of “funny” are actually hurtful. Still, it took time to reach that realization.
As it turned out, some days later the corpus
was returned to the church, apparently a college prank more than anything. The church community, happy to get the corpus
backed, declined to press charges, although the college may deal with the students
internally. I applaud the church for
their willingness to forgive—forgiveness is always the right course of action,
never out of style; but I’m not opposed to the college meting out some form of
chastisement—everyone needs to learn there are consequences to their actions;
we do have an effect (positive or negative) on others whether we want to or
not. It’s the reality of life.
I do have to say that my initial reaction
bothers me a bit. While I know that
anger and the desire to retaliate are normal human reactions to being hurt or
offended (it wasn’t even a directed hurt toward me, though I felt my beliefs
were attacked), I also know that turning those emotions into action is
wrong. As someone once said, “If we live
by the motto ‘an eye for an eye’, soon the whole world will be blind.” (Jesus had something to say about that!) Fortunately, the grace of God can stop us
from taking that next step.
The next step ought to be a sense of compassion
for those who don’t have a relationship with our God, Who so beautifully
revealed Himself in His Son, Jesus the Christ.
It seems to me that any act of hurtfulness or violence comes from a
person who is very unhappy in their lives.
(Contented people never wish harm on anyone else.) The Source of true happiness is God—Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Not that we achieve
perfect happiness in this life, but we get glimpses of it through our
relationship with God, sort of a sneak preview of heaven!
We can’t force others to believe, but we can
be a voice of evangelization by the way we live and react to life. When we model Jesus for others, we help to
plant seeds that may one day grow. When
we pray for those who hurt us, we plant seeds.
What happens to the seeds depends on the person’s free will choices as
well as God’s grace. We have no control
over that, but we do have control over our own actions and reactions. We can make no better choice than the choice
to be Christ for one another, even when—especially when—we don’t feel like it.
Have a blessed . . . and Christ-like . . .
week!
No comments:
Post a Comment