https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050424.cfm
Opposition
I remember hearing on a local documentary a candidate who lost an election say that the Catholic Church is so close-minded about abortion. She was referring, of course, to women’s rights over their bodies. This is one hot issue among many others where the world opposes Jesus and the Catholic Church.
The world wants to reduce the Catholic Church and all that is divinely revealed to her from the Father through Jesus to privately held opinions made up as they go along (moral relativism holds that there are no moral principles to determine if something is right or wrong.)
In the gospels this past week, in several ways, Jesus has made it clear that he has told us what he has heard from the Father. Let us not be disheartened when others oppose us for our Catholic faith or try to keep our faith inside the church walls. The world opposes us for two reasons.
Firstly, it is a true sign that the life we live and proclaim in the world is the life of Jesus when we experience mistreatment, misunderstanding, and rejection. “If you belong to the world, the world would love its own. But I have chosen you out of the world; therefore, the world hates you.”
Secondly, Jesus promised that they would do the things to us they did to Him on account of his name. Why? Because they do not know the One who sent Him.
When we passionately pray for the people who oppose us and listen to them with a merciful outlook that does not condemn them, Jesus is planting a seed in their hearts and minds that will grow in its own time.
Remember Him telling the parable of the farmer who sown the seeds and how they sprout and become a plant, and no one knows how?
Gospel Challenge:
Our love for the Truth, who is Jesus, and our love for those who oppose us is that seed he plants in each one. Praise God for all those moments of opposition that can lead to their conversion and his glory.
Fr. Rick Pilger, IC
www.bscchurch.com
