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Goodness! How difficult it is to believe in the sort of Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth represents!

            To believe that we win by losing our very selves!

            To believe that love is everything.

            To believe that power is a great danger, wealth slavery, comfortable life a misfortune.

            It’s not easy.

            This is why you hear people in the street say, “If there was a God there would not be all this suffering.”

            Two thousand years have gone, and there are still Christians whose doctrinal notions belong to those ancient days when the power and existence of God was revealed by displays of strength and the victory of armies. And especially by wealth and having more possessions.

            The real secret had not then been received.

            Nor is it received very easily even today.

            Hence the blasphemy in general circulation denying the kingdom’s visibility, given the ordeal of suffering and death.

            The old teaching that we, the Church, must be strong still feeds our determination to possess the land and dominate the world.

            We must make ourselves felt. We must keep our enemies down. We must scowl. We must win, and to win we need money, money, money. And to have money we need banks, we need the means and we need clever bankers. How can we do good without means, without money? Let’s have a big meeting, and then any opposition will be shamed into silence. Well, we must defend our rights, the rights of the church. We must defeat our enemies.

            Enemies, always enemies on the Church’s horizon! Yet Jesus has told us in no uncertain terms that we no longer have any enemies, since they are the same people we are supposed to love, and love specially.

            Can it be that we have not understood?

            Don’t we read the Gospels in our churches?

            How long shall we wait before following the teaching of Jesus?

From Why, O Lord? by Carlos Carretto

What a gnawing piece of writing! I’m withholding commentary because I’m not sure Carretto’s insight needs commentary. But I will say that this hits deep, and if it stings… it probably needs too. The Church is a broad tent, and can be at times, blinded by bias and selective hearing. Certainly God likes grits… because I like grits. Right? Surely, we don’t believe that we are always above and beyond reproach?

There’s a lot of food for thought here.  So… think about it. -MDP-

LIVE YOUR LOVE!

IT MATTERS.