Love of God and
Love of neighbor, are nearly on the same plane,right?
Code:
So why does it seem so easy for Catholics not to "live" what Catholics are taught to believe?
OK, well, first off, I don’t know I’d be willing to say that Catholics are angry and bitter, as a group. There are a billion Catholics.To be honest, I wouldn’t use “angry” and “bitter” as the first two adjectives to describe us.
I’d go at your question this way, though: each of us knows nothing unless we know our own case. If we don’t become acquainted with that, what hope have we of diagnosing anyone else? “First tend to the beam in your own eye…” may sound cliche, but once you notice how humble good confessors are, how humble holy people are, you start to realize that the truth has to be in that direction.
OK then: when you don’t live what you know, why is that? Are
you angry and bitter? If so, why? If not, it is fair to ask why have you made other people’s sins your business, instead of your own? Maybe that is part of your answer.
For me, there is a big gap between what I know to do and actually doing it.
Someone once said that God gives us needs of which we are aware so that we might be grateful when those needs are met. Maybe we are left with clay feet in order that we not forget we haven’t left the human race. Maybe that is why God allows that gap: so we’ll know we need His grace, so we’ll ask for it, so we’ll thank and praise him for every good thing in us.
As for angry and bitter, those are two emotions that follow dashed expectations. I don’t see anger itself as the problem, per se. Anger is a useful emotion. It tells me I have a sense that somebody has crossed a line that is mine to patrol. If I can put aside the physical upset and just look at that question–has a line been crossed or not, and what’s up with that?–I find anger can be very useful. It goes off at the wrong time sometimes, but then so does a smoke alarm. But like a smokealarm, one has to know how to shut the stupid thing off. It doesn’t have to be blaring in order to attend to the fire. We know Jesus was angry when he cleared the Temple. Anger has its place, then, even in a totally peaceful and compassionate heart. It is only a problem when it becomes the master, and not the messenger. Still, an angry Catholic might be, at the same time, a very good Catholic.
As for bitterness, that comes with anger that hasn’t been let go of. If I cannot give up a situation to God, if I cannot place the transgressions I feel are happening but are beyond my control into God’s hand, then anger will give way to bitterness and hostility in me. That’s how I work, anyway. I don’t think bitterness and hostility have much use. If anger is pain over the wound, then bitterness and hostility are more of an infection. It is an attempted healing process gone wrong. We are meant to be at peace and filled with compassion. Peace and compassion may be compatible with anger, but they are incompatible with bitterness and hostility. If one feels continually attacked, though, that compassion is a difficult and ongoing task. Oh, well. Jesus never told us this would be easy.
I think I get bitter and hostile when I forget the not-small print about carrying my cross, about how I could expect to be treated as a follower of Jesus, or about how and by Whose power my burden is meant to be carried. That’s pretty easy to do.
To be honest though: I get most bitter and hostile when I’m attacked for doing what I shouldn’t have been doing, when someone has good reason to be angry with me. It is easier to return anger than to give up defensiveness and admit I’m in the wrong, or to endure someone endlessly shaming me for an act I can repent of but not undo, or to abandon my wrong when my attackers won’t even admit to theirs.
I think that is how it happens with me. I hope that helps.
look at my name
