Wednesday, August 11, 2010
August 11th Gospel
Today's Gospel is Mt 18:15-20. It talks about how to handle grievances. I personally think it's cool how the early Church handled arguments. The eloquent writings which we now call the New Testament were mostly letters to address wrongs done, and how they should handle difficult situations. The early Church, as much as some of them wanted to cling to Judaism, soon realized it was starting from scratch. I know sometimes I find it easier to get my thoughts and develop them on paper before approaching someone about a problem. Writing can bring out the poet in a person without them even knowing it. 1 Corinthians is said to be one of Paul's strongest letters because of how he was able to tie so many things together in such a profound way for the reader(s). I think our generation has certainly lost the art of good argument. We have the ability to hide behind the masks of technology. When I read this Gospel, all I can think is, "Wow, I would NEVER have the courage to confront somebody like Jesus suggests. No way!" I wonder, is there a single correct way to handle grievances? Thoughts please :).
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Good post. If I could "like" it I would. ;-D As for a single correct way to handle grievances, I would have to say, "no". Because... we are all different people with different styles of communicating, different ways of perceiving things, and situations vary so. much. that you just can't make a blanket statement in my opinion. I think some people are naturally better at correcting or pointing things out in a loving and compassionate way than others, and these people hopefully recognize and use this gift as they are able. That's not to say the rest of us can just use the excuse that we weren't equipped properly to handle difficult situations as a cop-out, but I think we each have to discern, from situation to situation, how we are called to handle things that are of the tricky variety. And then there's the old phrase, "sometimes silence is golden." I once had a priest tell me, when I was struggling with a situation with another, that if I knew that the other person knew how I felt (which I did), then pointing out his "issue" would do little to no good. Rather I could lead by my example, and not completely close him off by saying something that was likely to set him off. Does this make sense. Who was it, St. Francis, who said "preach the Gospel always, use words only when necessary." I think pointing out grievances can at times fall into this category. It isn't easy, that's for sure, but like everything else faith-related it is a journey, and we must continually resort to prayer and discernment and ask the Holy Spirit to be our help and guide as we travel through life.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the whole part about hiding behind technology, I think you could do an entire post on that. Cyberspace has utterly and forever changed the way we communicate, compliment, offend, etc. Some of this progress has been good for sure, but some has been a real detriment to the way we handle people, and the "people skills" we are passing on to the next generation are at times questionable at best.
Okay, I'm done. I'm holding the babe waiting for him to be in a sound sleep to lay him down, so I had some time to think. Hope I didn't rattle on too much.
Have a great night!