Life's a Battle Son
by Andrew Richards

"Life's a battle son, by the strong the victory's won."
His father's words of solid truth rang in the old man's ears,
His father's message told the boy, how his life should run,
Remember "Life's a battle son," repeated through the years.

The man was old, his body spent, from battles down the years,
He had a name, great wealth and fame, but morals he hadn't any,
Full of pride, he didn't care, he'd conquered all his fears,
He'd beat them all, one by one, and the people he hated were many.

He sat alone in a large old house, the grounds were vast and spacious,
His mood was dark from faces recalled of people he'd battled and won,
He looked at plans to gain more wealth, his appetite was voracious,
His father's words, he heard in his gloom , "It's all a big battle son!"

An adopted child, raised in wealth, his parents he never knew,
His mother had said, the father's last words, in the leaf of a book they were written,
The book now lost, had come with the child, his father's words so true,
His father'd died in some far off land, by the lure of travel'd been smitten.

Alone in his room, the old man did jump, as the telephone suddenly rang.
Twas the doctor who said, the cancer has spread, for you the battle is lost,
Cursing the doctor, the phone he did throw, he threw it down with a bang,
Life was a battle, he'd won every one, he'd never counted the cost.

Alone in his room, he reached for the drawer, he opened it very wide,
He thought of his father, hating his words, and the life they had led him to run,
He pulled out a gun, and his mouth he did open, placing the barrel inside,
As the trigger he pulled, he hated the thought, "by the strong the victory's won."

The funeral took place, and the people he hated, shared in the old man's gold,
Cleaning the cellar, a book they did find, from a father to his son.
In the leaf of the book, a message they read, from a loving father old,
"Bless you my son, of truths I might leave you, all are summed up in one."

"The good we do lives after us, like a hand within a glove.
For in giving we receive, and in spiritual strength we've won.
The world, the Flesh, and the Devil are beat by overcoming Love.
So remember life's a battle, son, and by the strong the victory's won."

"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. (l John 3:l5)

End

From Encyclical Deus Caritas Est:

"If anyone says, ‘I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1 Jn 4:20).

2303 Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven."(Catechism of the Catholic Church)

2262 In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord recalls the commandment, "You shall not kill," and adds to it the proscription of anger, hatred, and vengeance. Going further, Christ asks his disciples to turn the other cheek, to love their enemies. He did not defend himself and told Peter to leave his sword in its sheath. (Ibid CCC)

2302 By recalling the commandment, "You shall not kill," our Lord asked for peace of heart and denounced murderous anger and hatred as immoral. (Ibid CCC)

Anger is a desire for revenge. "To desire vengeance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit," but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution "to correct vices and maintain justice." If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin. The Lord says, "Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment."(Ibid CCC)

1933 This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies. Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy.(Ibid CCC)

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"Hatred" of others has no place in one who has put on the mind of Christ. For just as materialistic love and desire for the things and persons of this world "attaches" one's will to them, and makes the power of one's will unavailable for loving God, passionate hatred does the same thing. Passionate hatred is negative attachment of our will to persons and created being that ensnares us, and keeps us from loving God, just as does positive, selfish desire. That's why successful spirituality is always "the middle way," becoming unattached to persons and objects, while recognizing their essential goodness, and avoiding the intense hatred implicit in demonizing them through radical detachment. We must become "unattached" to the persons and things we turn away from for love of God. We must not be tied to them negatively by a passionate hatred of them. We can have a powerful aversion to all manner of sin without becoming emotional, passionate and filled with hatred.

Speaking of hatred and the lack of enmity in the attitude and behavior of perfect souls in the seventh mansion, St Teresa says:

"They bear no enmity to those who ill-treat them, or desire to do so. Indeed they conceive a special love for them, so that, if they see them in some trouble, they are deeply grieved and would do anything possible to relieve them; they love to commend them to God, and they would rejoice at not being given some of the honours which His Majesty bestows upon them if their enemies might have them instead and thus be prevented from offending Our Lord."

Christ's message and the message of the gospels, e.g., St John, is that the Christian is one whose life is characterized by "Love." Indeed, St John says that this is how the world will know we are Christians. A Christian is one who is called to First Commandment Love of God with his whole heart, his whole soul, and his whole mind. It is Love which He must be about. And although He may have hatred and aversion for the evil things and sins that exist in the world, he doesn't spend all his time dwelling on them. For he knows that an excessive concentration on hatred for evil readily leads to the grave sin of hating those who perpetuate evil, or "hating" instead of "Loving" one's enemies."

When we hate someone or something, we are forever "bound-up" with that person or thing until our hatred is released. The energy of our will bound up in hatred, as in selfish love, is not available for the First Commandment, to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole self. That's why Christ never said "Hate your enemies." That is the mistake made by all other religions who have not understood, nor been exposed to, the depth of love required by the Fullness of Truth, when from out of His Suffering on the Cross He said, "Forgive them Father."

For the call to "Love your enemies," the "New Thing" about the New Testament, is a stubling block for the Jews, and a scandal to the Gentiles. It's a call to the Cross, spiritual death, and new life. Such Love is only possible in a spirit of profound humility. And it is not natural to man, whose spirit comes into the world imbued with the "pride of life." While our natural efforts to be humble help, and are necessary, the real power of Humility is Supernatural. And, therefore, it is only available through "radical spiritual transformation," another name for the Indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ. It comes through death of the Old Man, and the Life of the New Man. It is the Spirit we receive throgh the Sacramental Life of the Church. It is the Spirit which grows through Catholic Contemplative Prayer. And it is the Spirit of which we must not be ashamed, and of which we must teach all nations, no matter our preference for the comfort and ease of ecumenical syncretism.

So the spirit of "hatred" is in opposition to Christian spirituality. Do we think that there is any bit of His Creation that God does not look on with love? God's view of reality will become our view as we grow in spiritual union with Christ. Our conscious personalities become stunted and robbed of energy as we thrust, or repress our hated objects and persons into our unconscious in order to avoid the pain and anger they cause us. They are still there under the surface, alive and well, affect the shape of our personalities, and "come out" of the dark when we are tired or sick or during our dreams. In the meantime, it causes our personalities to shrink and become narrow and small as we shut out sections of reality, and as we bind-up more and more of its conscious energy in repressions and defense-mechanisms designed to keep hated persons and events out of consciousness.

St Paul reminds us in Scripture that we must, along with the armor of God(Faith,) put on the Mind of Christ. There is no ongoing hatred in such a mind. Such a Mind deals with the negative circumstances and people encountered in the daily round, even using force where appropriate, and if necessary, without allowing passionate "hate" to gain a permanent residency in one's spirit. Jesus has given us the example. We must not hate individuals who break God's law, the criminal law, or against whom we must fight to protect ourselves, our family, or our country. The Christian's job is not to hate evil, it is to overcome evil with good. And, in like manner, we must not hate individuals who have hurt us in the past by their evil deeds or wrongdoing:

Matt 5 : 44-45 Jesus said, "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."

So the problem of turning our spirits over to God in love is somewhat more complicated than might at first appear. It is not enough to break the attachments we have to materialistic objects and persons of our selfish desire. We must also break free from attachment to the hatred of people in our current day-to-day lives, and the hatred we retain for persons who hurt or abused us in our memories. And when we do, we will then stop disliking or hating new people we meet who remind us of those we keep in our hate-bank memories. And there are no people whom we should exempt from this rule. We are not called upon to hate anyone, including God's enemies, and including national and personal enemies. For vengeance is in God's hands. Our job is to pray for all persons, and to fulfill the First Commandment, by freeing our will for total self-giving love, which is the only kind that can become united with the Spirit of Divine, Self-Giving Love.

Now you may be thinking that such love and such forgiveness is not possible to man. For how could anyone ask you to forgive so and so who did such and such to you or your loved ones. And in a sense you'd be right. For Christianity calls one to Radical Love, the Love of a St. Francis of Assisi. "Where there is injury, pardon O Lord." For such Love is not possible through human effort, it is only available to those who have the humility to call on God to help them. For it is through Humility that God's graces pour forth into the Christian soul. And it is through Humility that the Christian conquers hatred. For God Inhabits such Humility, entering the soul through His Holy Spirit, and He Himself brings about the Victory.

So the Christian cooperates with God in bringing about the Total Freedom, and Reign of Self-Giving Love in his soul under the bondage of hatred and selfish love. He does this by accepting God's Will in all that has happened or that will happen:

. "There is not a moment in which God does not present Himself under the cover of some pain to be endured... or of some duty to be performed. All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action. It is really and truly there present, but invisibly present, so that we are always surprised and do not recognise His operation until it has ceased. If we could lift the veil, and if we were attentive and watchful God would continually reveal Himself to us, and we should see His divine action in everything that happened to us, and rejoice in it. At each successive occurrence we should exclaim: "It is the Lord," and we should accept every fresh circumstance as a gift of God."(Fr. de Caussade,"Abandonment to Divine Providence")

So when a Christian praises God in each moment, even when the moment brings evil into his life, he is not praising the evil in the event, rather he is praising God, who brings Greater Good out of evil behaviour and events. And as he prays for people who have done evil in his life, he becomes free from the bondage of hatred for those people and events. And he is thereby empowered to Love God and others more fully, as his will is freed from such negative attachments. And the grace that pours forth from such cooperation with God's Spirit perfects the natural life by releasing bound-up energy into the personality, and, raises one to participation in Eternal Life, the Joy of Supernatural Self-Giving Love.

St Francis de Sales has pertinent comments on the spiritual danger we face when we allow ourselves to entertain anger and hatred, even when it is justified. We know that there is such a thing as righteous indignation and just anger as when Christ drove the money-changers from the temple. However, in His directions to us, Christ said, "Resist not evil. Overcome evil with good!" So we must learn to live without passionate anger and hatred.

"And so, my child, say I to you. This miserable life is but the road to a blessed life; do not let us fall out by the way one with another; let us go on with the company of our brethren gently, peacefully, and kindly. Most emphatically I say it, If possible, fall out with no one, and on no pretext whatever suffer your heart to admit anger and passion. S. James says, plainly and unreservedly, that "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." 3 Of course it is a duty to resist evil and to repress the faults of those for whom we are responsible, steadily and firmly, but gently and quietly. Nothing so stills the elephant when enraged as the sight of a lamb; nor does anything break the force of a cannon ball so well as wool. Correction given in anger, however tempered by reason, never has so much effect as that which is given altogether without anger; for the reasonable soul being naturally subject to reason, it is a mere tyranny which subjects it to passion, and whereinsoever reason is led by passion it becomes odious, and its just rule obnoxious.

"When a monarch visits a country peaceably the people are gratified and flattered; but if the king has to take his armies through the land, even on behalf of the public welfare, his visit is sure to be unwelcome and harmful, because, however strictly military discipline may be enforced, there will always be some mischief done to the people. Just so when reason prevails, and administers reproof, correction, and punishment in a calm spirit, although it be strict, every one approves and is content; but if reason be hindered by anger and vexation (which Saint Augustine calls her soldiers) there will be more fear than love, and reason itself will be despised and resisted.

"The same Saint Augustine, writing to Profuturus, says that it is better to refuse entrance to any even the least semblance of anger, however just; and that because once entered in, it is hard to be got rid of, and what was but a little mote soon waxes into a great beam. For if anger tarries till night, and the sun goes down upon our wrath (a thing expressly forbidden by the Apostle 1 ), there is no longer any way of getting rid of it; it feeds upon endless false fancies; for no angry man ever yet but thought his anger just.

"Depend upon it, it is better to learn how to live without being angry than to imagine one can moderate and control anger lawfully; and if through weakness and frailty one is overtaken by it, it is far better to put it away forcibly than to parley with it; for give anger ever so little way, and it will become master, like the serpent, who easily works in its body wherever it can once introduce its head. You will ask how to put away anger. My child, when you feel its first movements, collect yourself gently and seriously, not hastily or with impetuosity. Sometimes in a law court the officials who enforce quiet make more noise than those they affect to hush; and so, if you are impetuous in restraining your temper, you will throw your heart into worse confusion than before, and, amid the excitement, it will lose all self-control."

"Having thus gently exerted yourself, follow the advice which the aged S. Augustine gave to a younger Bishop, Auxilius. "Do," said he, "what a man should do." If you are like the Psalmist, ready to cry out, "Mine eye is consumed for very anger," 1 go on to say, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord;" so that God may stretch forth His Right Hand and control your wrath. I mean, that when we feel stirred with anger, we ought to call upon God for help, like the Apostles, when they were tossed about with wind and storm, and He is sure to say, "Peace, be still." But even here I would again warn you, that your very prayers against the angry feelings which urge you should be gentle, calm, and without vehemence.

"Remember this rule in whatever remedies against anger you may seek. Further, directly you are conscious of an angry act, atone for the fault by some speedy act of meekness towards the person who excited your anger. It is a sovereign cure for untruthfulness to unsay what you have falsely said at once on detecting yourself in falsehood; and so, too, it is a good remedy for anger to make immediate amends by some opposite act of meekness. There is an old saying, that fresh wounds are soonest closed.

"Spiritual Hangovers," Mother Angelica