HOPE

HOPE

Consider a certain Friday night, a long confusion-filled Saturday and then an even more confusing Sunday.  This was the long night of the soul of the disciples and Apostles of Jesus.  Even though they were told he would rise, actually believing in the possibility must have come hard.  They stayed together for comfort and reassurance trying to hang on to their hope in him.    Then the women came with incredible news, and throwing caution to the wind they raced to the tomb with their hearts in their mouths.   He wasn’t there, but then where was he?  It wasn’t until he came to the upper room that the truth was known.  He truly rose from the dead.  

The message of Easter that proves, without doubt, that God has visited his people, is coupled with an equally important message;

Never, ever give up hope.

Jesus was all about hope. People driven by hope, streamed out on to the hills to see him, to hear him, and to seek his help. They returned to their homes filled with greater hope.  The idea that God loves indiscriminately and that his judgment is always tempered by compassion was the source of their hope and ours. 

Emily Dickenson wrote these lines: 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

The hope embodied in Jesus is what can sustain us no matter what is happening. 

We are currently undergoing a serious conflict between political policy and our innate compassion for others. Our reputation as a nation is under siege.  But we cannot despair because despair is the death of hope.  We have to believe in all that we stand for until things are righted and most important of all, never, ever give up hope.  Jesus trusted in God the Father and we trust in Him.  Like the disciples we need to hang on to hope. 

Let us pray fervently for an end to this crisis,

Carol Lemelin OPA

AN EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE

AN EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE

I’m angry.  I admit it.  I am sick to death of the discrimination that has become the national pastime.  It’s even worse when the discrimination comes from people who call themselves Christians. These are FAKE Christians. 

You know you’re a FAKE Christian if…

You answer crude, malicious and discriminatory remarks with silence.

You turn a blind eye to the breakup of immigrant families over what amounts to paperwork.

You use the Bible to support your prejudices.

You are rude to people who struggle to express themselves in English.

You won’t serve or bake a cake, for crying out loud, for someone who doesn’t fit your image of perfection. 

You hate anyone because of his or her gender, color, race, religion or sexual orientation. 

You set that example for your children. 

You completely ignore the example set by Christ, who embraced everyone except hypocrites.

You think Jesus was kidding when he said, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”

You think God hates any of his creations and will support your efforts to make their lives miserable. 

You suffer from the delusion that racism, bigotry and discrimination are part of the Christian responsibility to live in the image of Jesus. 

May God have mercy on us, 

Carol Lemelin OPA

TALKING RELIGION

LET’S TALK RELIGION

Now don’t recoil in horror. We have been warned often not to bring up religion in public, but let’s risk it and examine religion. 

“A personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices held to with ardor and faith”, is the cold and unsatisfying definition of religion by Webster. But religion is not cold, on the contrary, it is a hot topic.   

There is something seriously wrong with the human race when it comes to attitudes about religion. Most religions have a built-in arrogance they call righteousness.  Their attitude is what we believe is the one truth. All else is in error. The sad effect of this attitude is the anger and resentment between people or things that in the long run don’t matter at all.  And religions with myriad rules and strict codes of conduct create a judgmental attitude in all the followers, which leads to creating snobs of the congregants who pass judgment on one another as well as on people of other religions.  Judge not, lest thou be judged.

Even though the Christian religions purport to follow the all-inclusive Jesus Christ, many do not.  For example, there is a church, which attends military funerals carrying signs that read GOD HATES GAYS. They have created their own god, made in their likeness. There is no compassion in their system of beliefs. How is it that the worship of the Supreme Being can engender violence?  How can it be that what you are against is more important than how you reflect Jesus? Jesus was emphatic that his followers were not to set themselves up as superior to each other or the rest of the world.  “It shall not be so with you.”

Many years ago a woman told me that the parish council meeting the night before was awful with name-calling and anger. I said I didn’t understand that. If Jesus was at the meeting how could that happen?  She laughed at me.  She told me I was naïve and I would soon change my tune.  Well, I wasn’t wrong then and I’m not wrong now.  Jesus is the center of our faith.  Jesus is the one we are expected to imitate.  Personally I think that people who allow hate in their religion are lucky Jesus and his whip are nowhere around.  

When Vatican II came along, the idea was to go back to the time of the early disciples who were called The Way.  The simplicity of their faith, their emphasis on love and caring for one another in the name of Jesus was something to be desired.  But something went wrong. The human need to control gained power and Jesus was left out.  Human beings ignore the will of God and set out to make up their own Way.

This is not limited to Christians, however.  Hindus hate Muslims and some Muslims apparently hate everybody. Jehovah’s Witnesses hate Catholics. Many Protestants say that Catholics are not Christians. Therein lies the problem.  

What exactly is a Christian?  Put simply, a Christian is a follower of Christ. That means that you try to live your life in his image.  It means that gossip, intolerance, and hate have no place in your life.  It means you operate from a compassionate center at all times and with all people.  Is that too hard? Is that why we don’t do it?  What in the world do we think Jesus was all about?

Jesus is our direct link to God.  He came as one of us to teach us how to be human. The Spirit of God lives and works to fulfill the will of God throughout the world and we, who have received that spirit, are duty-bound to cooperate in that work.  

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA