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Friends,
today’s Gospel passage describes the persecution Christians face before
the end of the world. When does the church stop being persecuted? When
the Lord returns, and not before.
From
the earliest days until the present, the community of Jesus Christ has
been the focus of the world’s violence. There is the old principle:
“kill the messenger.” And it applies here. The church will announce,
until the end of time, that the old world is passing away, that a new
world of love, non-violence, and life is emerging. This announcement
always infuriates the world of sin. Always. The twentieth century was
the bloodiest on record—and the one with the most martyrs.
What
do we do in the meantime? We maintain a detachment from the world that
is passing away, our eyes fixed on the world that will never end. And we
speak. Confidently, boldly, provocatively. The message of the Gospel,
the dying and rising of the Lord.
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