Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” He later says, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” Jesus didn’t come here to maintain the status quo or to tell people in person they were doing a good job. He came because people had lost their way and needed to be guided back on the right track.
As good as world peace sounds, it’s impossible to have in this lifetime. This world is ruled by Satan and will always be ruled by Satan until the day Jesus returns to permanently put evil in it’s place. There will always be people who desire to spread evil and get rid of all that is holy and good. We currently have an attack on the family, an attack on life, and an attack on religion.
The attack on the family comes through the pushing of premarital sex and gay marriage, along with a general societal message that says do what you want. The attack on life is caused through the pushing of abortion as not only an appropriate medical procedure, but as something we should all embrace. Finally, the attack on religion comes in the form of a backlash for churches who stand up against a popular opinion in society.
As Christians, we shouldn’t want anything to do with the ways of the world. The theme from the Gospels from the weekday Masses this past week has been all about going against how the world thinks and thinking more like Jesus does. We heard about being humble like a child and that if we like our current life, we will lose it, but if we hate our life we will find it. We heard about forgiveness and also how marriage is supposed to be a lifelong bond.
The world tells us that we should be able to do whatever we want to make us happy. According to many people, it is more important to do what is best for us and our ego, than to do what is morally right. If a moral value conflicts with a world value, then we need to update the moral value to get with the times. People say that teachings they disagree with are outdated, wrong, and must be changed. While there are some teachings of the Church that can be changed, the majority of them can’t be changed without having serious consequences. The Church is here to help guide it’s members to Heaven and if certain fundamental rules are changed, people will not only be led astray, but the whole Church will become sick and risk dying off.
We need to stand up for what is right, even if that means going against the popular opinion. It’s easy to keep the peace and not speak out against a wrong and dangerous popular opinion. However, if no one speaks up, the world will begin to stray further and further from the light and the truth. It is much easier to correct a deviation from the course early than to wait until later when people have drifted far off course. We shouldn’t try to spend our lives fitting in with the world. When we all work towards fitting in with with God’s plan, we will find that we don’t fit in with the world. However, when our grain of wheat dies, we will discover the fruit of our work and we will join the many others in making Heaven a little more beautiful.
