A WORLD OF HATRED

Most people with access to modern media are well aware that once again the poisonous hatred of one individual has produced something which has gone viral and is being used by others to justify their own hatred. In the midst of all this hate Americans are killed and even more men, women and children fall victims to violence from their own co-religionists. With hatred and violence raging it took much courage and true pastoral love for Pope Benedict not only to visit Lebanon and cry out for peace and for cooperation between all religions, urging in particular the leaders to work for peace, but also it was prophetic for the Holy Father to sign and release the Post-Synodal document on the Church in the Middle East, containing within a plea for communion of love between Christians, Jews, Muslims. We can all choose to be angry, we can all choose hate, we can all bemoan the fact that anarchy and chaos are spreading both within and between nations – or we can heed the call of the Holy Father and become instruments of peace, by loving one another, forgiving our enemies and by persistent prayer for peace. Jesus Divine Mercy revealed to St. Faustina the power of prayer for mercy. In these days when beside all those suffering from violence and hatred, suffering homelessness, unemployment in the global economic crisis, in these days when, as we saw in France and see unfolding in the United States, elections are fought not about ideas but, frankly, by a form of disdain if not outright hatred of the other side – surely, urgently, it is time for every individual, indeed I would urge all parishes, to daily pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy before we all drown in blood, darkness, death, for it sure seems we are very close to a tipping point when there will be no stopping what seems to be coming.