Blessing our enemies is non negotiable

Blessing our enemies is non negotiable. 

Many of you I am sure have seen the horrible news about knife attack against Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney Australia. One of his priests was also injured, as well as some of the congregation. But Praise God no one was killed. 

It is normal and natural to have experienced anger and/or outrage over what happened. No one should ever have to fear being able to attend a place of worship, wondering if they’ll be attacked or killed. What happened was evil and inexcusable. Full stop. It does most matter what religion or denomination they belonged to, people have the right to feel safe in a place of worship. 

However, what many of us forget as Christians is we are called to not just be normal. We are called to be abnormal, called to live a life of supernatural grace. Our righteousness needs to be above and beyond that of others (Matthew 5:20). We are in the world but not of this world (John  25:19? Romans 12:2), we have been called and set apart from the world by Jesus himself to be his witnesses in the world, sanctified in truth (John 15:16-21). But this also means we are called to respond differently than the norm as well…. 

We are told to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, pray for them and even BLESS them (Luke 6:27-28, Matthew 5:43-48, Romans 12:14,). This is something that we have heard so often that it’s easy to take for granted, or dismiss. But when we are confronted in our real life and it personally affects that - then we easily forget these teachings of Jesus and want revenge. This is where prayer and grace are essential. Because it is natural and normal to want revenge for theo who have deliberately hurt us or our family and loves ones. But to be able to resist our nature, and pray for them, to bless our enemies … this is beyond our human capacity! This requires grace and the strength of the Holy Spirit living within us (Romans 8:11). 

But what does it mean to bless? It means to wish then well, to wish them happiness and peace. It can hard to do this on the best of days for our own family members who stress us out and annoy us, let alone our enemies! But this is what Jesus teaches us to do, tells us we have to do as his disciples. It is a non negotiable. 

Now if we struggle so much with bitterness and anger against family members, or people at work we dislike, politicians or even the random person who walks slow in front of us at the shops! How will we be able to respond if we are ever in a situation like what happened in Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Sydney? If someone attacked you with a knife and stabbed you, could you honestly say you could bless them and forgive them? What about if they attacked your husband or wife or children? Could you still say you could forgive them and bless them? 

If we are honest, most of us would answer with a loud NO. 

It would be an act of heroic virtue to be able to forgive and bless someone who physically attacks us or our loved ones. Yet this is what Jesus expects of us all, and has given us the power to do through the gift of the Gospel and His Holy Spirit. He did not put limitations on who we don’t have to forgive. We do not have any excuses, we are commanded to live eachother, love others, bless those who curse and persecute or attack us. This is real Christianity! This is the harsh reality of our faith put into action in real life. 

This is why a defining characteristic of Christianity has always been the witness of the martyrs. In their death, they became living witnesses to all the world of the love of Christ that means more to them than anything in this world. The history of our martyrs is that they died either praising God, praying for their persecutors or blessing them. But they did not try to curse them or call upon God for vengeance. Nor did the pray to God to kill their enemies - instead they submitted themselves into God’s hands and thanked him for counting them worthy to die for the Gospel. 

So please take time to consider this recent terrible event and reflect upon how you are reacting to the news… 

- Are you instinctively wanting to write angry posts online about extemist terrorists? Or are you praying for the conversion of the attacker? 

- Are you asking for justice and vengeance for the victims? Or are you praying for them during this time of need for healing and consolation? 

- Are you instinctively responding by thinking “yep typical, another attack from these people from certain ethnic groups and/or religions, they’re all evil and we need to get rid of them”. Or are you praying to God to take away the bitterness and judgement in your heart, and asking God for the grace to pray for the repentance of the perpetrator and also for those who will be blamed for his actions and considered guilty by association? 

It does not matter the circumstance or situation. We are always called as Christians to pray for all, to seek after peace, do good (not just talk about it online), and to be a blessing to all in the world so corrupted by evil and sin. 

It is disappointing and disheartening to see people respond to this tragic event by saying “oh well, but he’s not a true bishop is he? Isn’t he a Nestorian or something?”. 

My response to that is “so what? If even a Nestorian behaves more Christlike than you do, then what does it say about you spiritually?”.  

I urge you all my fellow believers, not to let injustice and evil take away your joy and peace of heart. Yes it is normal to be angry and upset at unjust things, absolutely. But we also need ti understand that we cannot remain angry and bitter - because it makes us self righteous and hard heartened, eventually destroying us spiritually because we no longer have charity within us. Without love we are not Christian’s. Anyone can be angry, but true Christians forgive and bless and have love. Without love, everything we say or do is just empty and meaningless (1 Corinthians 13:2). 

We must all pray at all times (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We need to pray for those who annoy us, those who hurt us, and even those who trigger hatred within us. Those who we disagree with theologically or philosophically or politically. We don’t have to like them, but we must love risk and pray for them. We must never dehumanise those who are against us, because in the process we dehumanise ourselves by allowing hatred to rule in our heart and thus grieving the Holy Spirit within us (Ephesians 4:30-32)

Fight the good fight (1 Timothy 6:12), do good works for your enemies (Romans 12:21), bless those who curse you (Romans 12:14) - this is the way of the Cross. This is way of Jesus and his beloved disciples. May the world always know we are disciples of Christ (John 13:35), living as the true Sons of God (1 John 3:1-3).

In our current days, all us Christian’s are united by the bond of the “ecumenism of blood” as Pope Francis has stated. The outside world does not understand the internal historical, theological and doctrinal divisions between all the different denominations. It just sees us as follows of Christ, and so somehow we are “different” to them. Now is the time to unite in our prayers together, supporting eachother as fellow believers in a world becoming increasingly more hostile towards us. Death, persecution and attacks are always a possibility for us merely for believing in Christ. This was true for the martyrs in ever generation of the church, and it is still true for us today in 2024. 

You have inviolable dignity

You have inviolable dignity. You are loved and worthy of love, you were made for love. Jesus restores our dignity to us no matter how often we trample upon it and misuse it. Jesus always offers his hand out to us in love to free us from the dominion and slavery of sin that tries to disfigure and destroy us. 

Many of you may be currently inundated with news articles, stories, and online stories regarding the new document from the Dicastry for the Doctrine of Faith on human dignity. As always, people will try to cherry pick only one or two points out of context and misinterpret or misrepresent what it says. Many of you might feel overwhelmed with all the media responses and not had the chance to read the document for yourselves. 

Without getting into the specific content that easily falls into debates around topics in the current culture wars - I wanted to highlight for you some of the passages that really stood out for me. Overall it’s a very good document and it beautifully puts the dignity of the human person within the historical theological context of the Church, whilst engaging with modern terminology as well. 

I have created these quotes for you all to help highlight the particularly important and beautiful parts of this document. Understanding our own dignity and the dignity of others is vital for is to live the power of the Gospel in our life and to share that with all those around us. 

The reality of sin is that no only is it an offends against God, but it is also an offence against our own dignity as given to us by God.  The misuse of our freedom when we sin is ultimately a perversion of our dignity given to us by the Holy Trinity. The deeper I come to understand this truth, the more I begin to understand my struggles with habitual sins and my woundedness. But Christ restores to us our dignity that we have disfigured through sin, he washes us and cleanses us, he restores and elevates us, enlightening us and glorifying us as he transforms us into his likeness. 

If you get the chance, I recommend as always that you read the full documents of the church yourself. Never let other people’s opinions or the media “interpret” the doctrine of the Church for you. You have a responsibility to learn your faith so that you can live it out and teach others the saving power of the Gospel. 

Blessed Divine Mercy Sunday

Wishing you all a very blessed Divine Mercy Sunday! 🙏 

I wanted to share with you all a recent experience of mine with the amazing mercy and love of God. I forgot how it is connected to the promises of the Divine Mercy devotion, and so thought it appropriate today to share it with you. 

On Christmas Day 2023 my uncle passed away from cancer. He had been baptised Catholic and had his First Holy Communion as a boy, but was not practicing and more or less an atheist. He had been the driver of a car in an accident when he was younger that killed his sister - and so all his life he blamed himself for her death and believed he would go to hell. 

2 weeks before he died, my Aunty (his wife) called me and asked me to come pray with him as they didn’t think he had long to live. This surprised me as he often mocked my faith in a semi sarcastic loving way. He would say to me “just remember lad where you come from, don’t think your sh@? doesn’t stink”. To which I would reply back to him “even the most beautiful flowers have to grow out of sh@?!”. It was how we bonded with eachother. 

During his last two weeks I tried to visit him most days and would sit in the loungeroom with him while he was asleep. I’d pray the Divine Mercy chaplet and Rosary for him, praying for his soul. He let me pray the prayers for the dying with him and I blessed him with Holy Water. Then the next day, through a miracle - he agreed for my parish priest to visit him and hear his Confession, receive Anointing of the Sick and Holy Communion. The next day, he agreed to me bringing him Holy Communion again as well. 

Praise God for his loving mercy! 

To appreciate the miraculous nature of this you had to know my uncle. He had been a drug dealer as long as I can remember and a regular drug user. He mocked religious people as being “do gooders” and hypocrites. Plus all his life he genuinely believed he deserved to go to hell because of the car accident that killed his sister. I don’t think he would have received any of the Sacraments for at least 40 years or more. So you can understand my shock when not only did he let me pray with him and for him, but then to agree to have a random priest come for his Confession! I would never have thought that would happen in my wildest dreams. 

Then after his death I was asked by the family to do the funeral service. They are all non Christian atheists. 3 out of his 5 children have been in and out jail, and have drug addiction issues. Another one of our cousins was in jail and so at the funeral he attended with two prison officers and in handcuffs. Yet there I am at the cemetery in my habit and wearing a surplice - praying the Final Commitment prayers and incensing my uncles body as it lay in the coffin. 

One of my uncles best friends was shocked and said to my mum “how did you manage to get a priest to agree to do the funeral??”. She laughed and responded “That’s not a priest. That’s my son, he’s a hermit monk!”. She then had to convince him that it was not a joke and she was being serious. That’s how unconverted and far from God my uncle and all those around him were. Yet through a miracle he repented on his deathbed, died in a state of grace and had a Catholic funeral! Praise God for his mercies! 🙌

I never preach to my family or try to convert them in the sense of debating with them. I pray for them all and try to live my faith by example. Over time, the graces from my flawed example is bearing fruit, and even if I never saw any fruit again - I would still be in awe and thankful for the grace of my uncle’s conversion before he died! 

I believe this all happened due to the graces from the Divine Mercy. One of the promises of the devotion is that those who are dying with receive Mercy and conversion.

Jesus I trust in you! 

Evangelise by the witness of your life

This is one of the truest and simplest statements I have seen. It completely sums up my approach to the faith. We can spend hours and hours online debating with atheists, debating apologetics and theological nuances - but majority of the time it is a waste of a lifetime. Usually these are fuelled by pride and turn into frustrating when we depersonalise our ideological “opponent” and we become uncharitable. 

When we truly live our faith, when people see us living out the Beatitudes, when people see the transformation in us that the love of Christ continuously does to us everyday - that is when we “convert” others through the witness of our live. We becoming a living witness to the power of grace and the Holy Spirit transforming us. People will naturally start to approach you with questions or with requests for prayer even when years ago they may have mocked you or attacked you. That is when the Holy Spirit is at work behind the scenes! 

I know this to be true from my own experience. Don’t get caught up in online theological debates or semantics. Instead share the truth with people when and if they ask for it (1 Peter 3:15-16), pray for them and always be a person of prayer yourself. Everything else is secondary. Without the love of God poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5) and sharing the overflow with others - it is all just empty and pointless (1 Corinthians 13).

Pope Benedict XVI beautifully highlighted this in a Message for World Youth Day 2012: 

“Christianity is sometimes depicted as a way of life that stifles our freedom and goes against our desires for happiness and joy. But this is far from the truth. Christians are men and women who are truly happy because they know that they are not alone. They know that God is always holding them in his hands. It is up to you, young followers of Christ, to show the world that faith brings happiness and a joy which is true, full and enduring. If the way Christians live at times appears dull and boring, you should be the first to show the joyful and happy side of faith. The Gospel is the “good news” that God loves us and that each of us is important to him. Show the world that this is true!
Be enthusiastic witnesses of the new evangelization! Go to those who are suffering and those who are searching, and give them the joy that Jesus wants to bestow. Bring it to your families, your schools and universities, and your workplaces and your friends, wherever you live. You will see how it is contagious. You will receive a hundredfold: the joy of salvation for yourselves, and the joy of seeing God’s mercy at work in the hearts of others. And when you go to meet the Lord on that last day, you will hear him say: “Well done, my good and faithful servant... Come, share your master’s joy” (Mt 25:21).”

Lenten observance as sharing in the victory of Christ

In the Office of Readings for today the 1st Sunday of Lent, we have a wonderful reminder from St Augustine that opens up the Gospel reading for us today (Mk 1:12-15). Our union with Christ in baptism has configured us to Christ and joined us to him, so then through him we participate in his life. He allowed himself to be tempted in the desert so as to give us an example of spiritual warefar and show us how to share in his victory over the dominion of sin and the devil. 

This is the mystery that we are led into each year through the Holy Season of Lent. We enter into the desert, into the aridity of denial united in imitation of Christ so that we can truly celebrate the power of his Resurrection - not just as a historical even or something distant in the past. But as the new life we all already share in through baptism, so that in Christ (1 Peter 3:2-2) and with Christ we are more than conquerors, we are victorious in him (Romans :31-38) through the salvation he has won for us and offers to us every moment we are alive. 

So rather than temptations, struggles and trials as times of difficulty and failure - St Augustine teaches us that these are moments of grace, moments of deeper conformity to Christ so that with him we can share in his victory over sin. 

How often have we seen our temptations and trials as good things? This is something we need to retrain our mind to understand, this is part of the training and discipline of Lenten observance which is the real meaning of asceticism. Training with, and for Christ - united to him in his victory over sin.

Lent as preparation for the Victory of Love

As we enter into the Holy season of Lent, I wanted to remind you all as I also remind myself - anything we do during Lent (prayer, fasting, almsgiving) need to be in love. Without love it is all empty and we risk becoming the hypocrites that Jesus specifically warms us not to be in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday (Mt 6:1-6, 16-18). 

We fast so that we can learn self control. We do extra prayers or penances so that we can grow closer to God and remember He is always with us, whilst we so often get caught up in the distractions and responsibilities of life that stress us out. We give alms, perform acts of charity and mercy so that our hardened hearts are softened by the Holy Spirit, so that we love others as Jesus commanded us to and that our charity to others is done as if it was done for Jesus himself. Ultimately all of the spiritual practices, asceticism and prayers are about transformation. The transformation of our hearts so that in our union with Christ, He may shine out through us to others and so that they can encounter the love and mercy of God. 

So this Ash Wednesday and this Lent, don’t get caught up on arguments about types of fasting. Don’t get caught up in discussions on fasting only on bread and water, or about modern rules for fasting being far less strict than in the past etc… but instead remember that whatever we do this Lent, needs to be done out of love. Love for God, love for our neighbour and ultimately love for ourselves because it is Christ who loves us and has redeemed us. The love of Christ for us should be what urges us and compels us in everything we do or say (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). 

I wish you all a blessed and fruitful Lent as we enter the desert with Jesus and led by the Holy Spirit - to prepare our hearts to celebrate with joy the wonder of the Resurrection.  God bless you all and please keep me in your prayers 🙏 

As the Collect for Ash Wednesday says : 

Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting

this campaign of Christian service,

so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,

we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.