FORTY-FIRST FORTY DAY FAST
FOR THE TRUTH OF GOSPEL NONVIOLENCE
JULY 1-AUGUST 9
FAST FOOD, Fortieth Helping
Friends,
I feel like a slacker having only a picture to send out as the fortieth and last Fast Food Helping for this year, especially after the excellent reflections by David Knight. This was not what I planned. I planned to send you the talk on GNV I gave today at Auschwitz via ZOOM. (I was supposed to deliver it there at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer before medical complications arose.) However, they are having difficulty retrieving the recording of it. So all I have for a final FAST FOOD Helping is a picture of me on a screen at Auschwitz giving the talk! This I am sure has the feel of self-adulation and self-promotion on steroids! But, I wanted to let you know that I really did prepare something for the fortieth FAST FOOD Helping and it’s not getting to you for reasons beyond my control. Anyway, the attached photo is all that I now have for a Fortieth FAST FOOD Helping. If I( ever receive the recording of the presentation, I’ll forward it to you.
-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
www.emmanuelcharlesmccarthy.org
“Nothing is better or more necessary than love.
God is pleased with nothing but love.
One act of pure love is more precious in the eyes of God
and of the soul, and more profitable to the Church,
than all the good works together,
though it may seem as nothing.”
– St. John of the Cross
God is pleased with nothing but love.
One act of pure love is more precious in the eyes of God
and of the soul, and more profitable to the Church,
than all the good works together,
though it may seem as nothing.”
– St. John of the Cross
3 comments. Leave new
Dear Father (or blog admin), can you please ask something that is perturbing me in relation on non-violence? What should a christian do when his neighbor is suffering violence? For example, if robbers invade my neighbor’s house and start to molestate his children, and I notice it somehow, what should I do? I don’t know what Jesus would do in a circumstance like this. Can you help me? I think that the same way we have to do acts of mercy with famines, widows, orfans, prisoners etc, in order for these people to know they are loved by God, there’s some similar act of mercy that we must do with people that are suffering violence, but what is it? How can I stop a crime (if it’s possible) without the use of my force and/or violence? Thank you!
So sorry for the late response to your query.
One thing I hope we can all agree on is that in every situation there are millions of variables of which we have no comprehension. In your question like life in general, there are numerous variables to take account of here. As an example, what if the attacker has a grenade and you only had a gun or just a knife? What if in attempting to shoot the attacker, you kill your wife?
No human being can comprehend all these variables and ONLY God, who is omnipotent, can comprehend all these and this is why Jesus says that the only way to conquer evil is through the power of LOVE. St. Paul calls Jesus, the Power and Wisdom of God. The power referred to here is not dominative power but the Power to Serve through Love.
Jesus refused to kill to defend Himself. St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Church refused to kill or curse his enemies. Saul was a murderer but after his conversion through a revelation of the Truth (i.e. Christ), he did an about turn.
In all the justification for killing, death is always the ultimate fear but you know that it is the fear of death that gives devil power over us (see Hebrews 2:14-15). Let us not fear those who kill the body without killing the soul but rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell -Mathew 10 v.28
Finally, I would struggle to do what Jesus would do (Remember I am not saying that this is easy!). In the face of evil, should we do nothing? Of course not, Jesus explicitly said that we should return love for evil and pray for our persecutors (Mathew 5:43-44). The promise is that if we lose our life for the sake of the Gospel, then Eternity is ours.
If you wish to deal with this issue further, I suggest you either listen to Meditation on What Would You do or read a book titled “What Would you do?” This is the amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0836133463/qid=1120799070/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-9952902-8818302?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
If a violent person was going to harm a loved one, what would you do if you were a Christian?
1. It will be foolish to do nothing as Jesus did not standby and do nothing
2. It will be more foolish to respond in the same manner as the attacker as Jesus rejected this when he told Peter to put his sword away (Matt.26:50-52) or when He rejected the way adopted by those who were about to stone the adulterer (John 8:4-11)
3. It will be wise and more beneficial to the soul to try and act as Jesus would by actively looking for a way to inject love into the situation and hence, stand with the Lord of the universe whose ‘apparent’ defeat by His enemies resulted in supreme victory of the resurrection. Jesus took the chopped ear of his attacker and put it back. He injected good into the chaotic situation.
For a Christian to answer the question about “what would you do if someone was about to attack your spouse or children”, he/she would need to answer the question that Jesus asks: “Who do you say I am?” The crucial question is whether Jesus is seen as Lord and if He speaks the Truth! It is clear what Jesus said and expects: “Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you” (Luke 6:27-28).
– Rev. John L. McKenzie (Former President of the Society of Biblical Literature, the most prestigious grouping of Biblical scholars in the world. He spoke ten languages and his scholarly and popular writings are voluminous. The New York Times said of his 900,000-word Dictionary of the Bible, which is still in the English-speaking world the most used single volume Biblical dictionary, that it is unlikely that one person will ever again duplicate this achievement.)
In his Encyclical Fides in Ratio, John Paul II writes: