103 posts 8/18/2007 10:29 pm
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8/18/2007 10:30 pm
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Jesus: A Cause of Division... Reflect
Jesus: A Cause of Division... Reflect…
Scott and Kimberly Hahn are an American couple who converted to the Catholic Church and who in 1993 published a moving account of their spiritual odyssey in a book entitled Rome Sweet Home. Our Journey to Catholicism. Before converting , they were both active in the ministry as Evangelicals, which means that both of them had taken academic degrees in theology and were very committed Christians. By slow degrees, they began to question the foundations of the Protestant creed. Scott was the first to convert to Catholicism, with Kimberly following suit some time afterwards. And during that interval when the husband was a Catholic, they suffered tremendously from their division. In this connection, here are few sentences borrowed from their book. Scott is the one speaking here:
“Close friends became distant, Family members grew silent and turned away… I was made to feel like a leper… Meanwhile Limberly and I were sailing through even rougher waters. Days and weeks would pass without us sharing anything spiritual together. She was anything but eager to hear from me about the benefits of daily Mass and meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary. As my spiritual life surged forward, my marriage tumbled backward. What made it especially painful was our having shared such time of ministering together in the recent past. I found myself wondering. Will it ever be the way it was? Will our marriage ever survive this period of trial and agony?… Most attempts to deal forthrightly with our differences would end in grief and frustration” (pp. 97-99, passim).
Fortunately for these two, Scott’s wife eventually converted also after that, their unity as a couple was even deeper than before. However, we can see from their personal testimony that for a while their respective religious options divided them sharply. As for their Evangelicals friends, most of them broke away from them permanently.
Now, the Hahns and their friends were all Christians, deeply committed to Christians, yet their different ways of following Christ divided them. What kind of division , then, occur when a person marries someone of a completely different faith (for instance, a Muslim, or a Hindu or a Buddhist)?
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is referring to precisely such contingency with perfect honesty and realism, when he sadly predicts what his message and his person will inevitably produce, among other things, division between relatives and friends. In a Semitic shortcut which blurs the difference between purpose and unwanted consequence, he tells us:
“Do you think that I have come to establish peace… but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three, a father will be divided against his and a against his father, a mother against her and a against her mother, a mother-in-law against her -in-law, and a -in-law against her mother-in-law.”
Such division about religious differences are extremely regrettable, something we should all deeply deplore. However, they do have bright side. They show that some people are deadly serious about commitment to God and to what they believe to be the truth. Such people are ready to sacrifice any relationship, if necessary, so as to remain faithful to God. While regretting relationship breakups because of religious differences, we cannot help but admire and support those courageous souls who are prepared to sacrifice everything to God, including their own lives and even their greatest loves. Incidentally, Christ expects such dedication from every one of his disciples. For on one occasions he did make that abundantly clear when he said: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves or more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37 ).
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365 Days with the Lord
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