Today a good topic for our homily is obviously - VENGEANCE! Or perhaps maybe lack of vengeance. Mercy and forgiveness, yeah, that’s better. Let's talk about mercy and forgiveness instead.
We begin with David and Saul. King Saul was very jealous of David for many reasons but the biggest reason we can read in 1 Samuel 18:7:
At the approach of Saul and David, on David’s return after striking down the Philistine, women came out from all the cities of Israel to meet Saul the king, singing and dancing, with tambourines, joyful songs, and stringed instruments. The women played and sang: “Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands.”
King Saul did not like that song and the bible tells us how Saul knew the kingship wasn’t far from David and he became jealous, insanely jealous.
Long story short, King Saul begins to chase David all over the place and that is what brings us to today’s first reading where David spares Saul’s life. This wasn’t the first time David spared Saul either.
Saul is asleep and all his soldiers as well, apparently a very deep sleep, and David and Abishai are able to get right up to King Saul. Here is David’s moment.
Abishai whispered to David: “God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I will not need a second thrust!” But David said to Abishai, “Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the LORD’s anointed and remain unpunished?”
David shows mercy to Saul and refuses to kill the LORD’s anointed. Probably a smart move as David will soon be king so his mercy over vengeance is good teaching for his followers and to keep King David from being nailed to the ground with a spear!
But why mercy, why didn’t David exact his vengeance that day?
God designed us. God knows us. God; since he designed and knows us, knows what is good for us and what is also not so good for us. God knows that a vengeful disposition is filled with hate and anger and that is not good for us!
We should just trust God but since we live in a fallen world perhaps you will trust WebMD.
WebMD lists the following health problems related to long-term anger:
High blood pressure
Heart problems
Headaches
Skin disorders
Digestive problems
It even states that “unchecked anger also can be linked to crime, abuse, and other violent behavior”.
Ok, so if you don't trust God (whom you should), and you don't trust WebMD then we can look at one more example.
Even Master Yoda from the Star Wars sagas knew this well. He said:
Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.
King Saul feared David would take over as King, Saul was angered by the woman’s song. Saul got angry at David. Saul hated David. Saul suffered because of it.
God, however, does not hate or exact vengeance, he justly judges but does not hate. God can’t hate because God is love! We are made in his image, we are made not to hate, but to love.
St . Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians:
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.
Our Baptism removes the earthly one's sin, the original one’s sin - Adam’s sin - and grafts us to the Heavenly one, the Holy One - to Christ as well as His Catholic Church and that can never be undone or taken away.
We must strive to be like God and show mercy and to do that we must also forgive. It’s not easy for us. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive can be yourselves! Even though we have been forgiven of Original Sin we live in a fallen world and concupiscence still remains.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
Concupiscence is the word of the day, not the WORDLE of the day, that can only be 5 letters. Concupiscence is an inclination towards evil. It’s what can make some sins, some evils look attractive.
Again, if I may quote Yoda. Luke Skywalker asks him:
Is the Dark Side stronger?
Yoda replies:
No… no… no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
Yoda was a pretty good little green theologian in the Star Wars series. Yoda seemed to have an understanding of concupiscence.
I suppose I should finally quote today’s gospel and there Jesus tells us that we must:
love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
It’s not easy but it is doable and we have but one person to look to for the perfect example of this, Jesus Christ.
Saint Philip Neri says this very eloquently:
”If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a Crucifix, and think that Christ shed all His Blood for him, and not only forgave His enemies, but even prayed His Heavenly Father to forgive them also. Let him remember that when he says the Our Father, every day, instead of asking pardon for his sins, he is calling down vengeance on himself.”
No comments:
Post a Comment