When Will the Killings End ?

This title appeared in one of the feature articles of the Davao Catholic Herald published in the October 2011 month. The question is really vital and actual. It is good to delve deeper into that query. It is true we cannot right a wrong with another wrong. St. Paul attests to that in his letter to the Romans 3:8. Actually we must all do something, being the one Body of Christ, to spread the positive ideas instead of the ideas of hatred, envy, greed, and materialism that are at the base of those harmful and violent reactions. Such people are only harming themselves since Jesus had warned us ‘the measure of what you give or do towards others will be the same measure to be turned back to you’ (Lk. 6:36). The Latin proverb (ideae regunt mundum.- translated: it is ideas that rule the world) has really a lot of import and momentousness in the subject we are dealing right now. It is so important we spread ideas that are true and based of justice. In the scuffle at the garden of olives Jesus told his followers who got swords to defend Him, “Put your sword back, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Mt. 26:52).

As members of the one body of Christ we, each one of us, have an important task to do. That is, by word, deed, sacrifice and prayer to be instruments spreading the positive ideas which Christ brought to our world: the ideas of love, joy, peace, harmony, patience, understanding, and concern for the fellowman or woman. Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Populorum Progressio mentions ‘development is the new name for peace’. Each of us therefore has to do our part, like St. Francis who prayed, ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred let me bring your love.. For it is in giving that we receive and in dying that we’re born to eternal life’. Also one Spanish proverb asserts thus: Quien da pan, da paz (He who gives bread, gives peace). Jesus Himself tells us. “It is more blessed to give than to receive”(Acts 20:35). Let’s do our part, each of us, to spread ideas that are positive rather than negative, developmental rather than destructive, understanding rather than judgmental. It’s basic in the teachings of Jesus: ‘Judge not and you shall not be judged for with what judgments you judge, you shall likewise be judged” (Mt. 7:1).

Let’s follow the Prince of peace, the truly victorious one who assured us in the end, whose life showed no trace of violence but only love and sacrifice—“In the world you will have trouble, but be brave: I have conquered the world” (Jn. 16:33).