“Violence is a Problem of the Heart”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
August 17-18, 2019
Scripture: Luke 12:49-53
I have heard it said that Jesus preached nonviolence. On the contrary…He preached violence against self for the sake of the Kingdom. He preached violence against evil. For example, He taught that “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:30). That seems fairly violent to me. Violence has been in our world since the time of Cain and Able. Sampson slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, and David killed Goliath with a single stone. However, violence can be a good thing when it stops other acts of sin. Avoiding sin helps draw us closer to God. Saints Francis and Benedict both threw themselves down a hill into a cluster of brambles to avoid sin. They went to any extreme to avoid it. When you have something in your body that doesn’t belong there, like a splinter in the finger, you go crazy and will go to all lengths to remove it.
The cause of violence is in the heart…the wrong stuff is there. Christ should be in people’s hearts; otherwise, the Devil will come in and take possession. We don’t have a problem of violence. Our problem is a lack of God which leads to evil dwelling in the soul. The state of the soul will manifest itself. If evil is present, the signs are: violence; mutilation of self, such as piercings of the lip, tongue, nose, etc.; nudity; and love of sex. Bad parents and enablers often contribute to these manifestations.
It’s not stuff, but Satan that causes violence. Stuff is just stuff. Stuff is not evil…it is morally neutral. Only evil people make stuff evil. Giving people more stuff won’t stop violence…even the filthy rich can be evil. An example is the Epstein case that’s been all over the news lately. What is the cure? Well, it’s not more laws…they don’t stop anything. The cure for violence is not a “what,” but a “Who”, and that is Our Savior.
When a Code Red is called at the Veterans’ Administration (VA) Hospital, four to five security personnel rush to the area to restore order. Are these patients morally bad? Maybe, but, they could be mentally ill. Others are violent because they are evil. Once, we had a patient who had just come out of surgery. He was acting up, because he wanted to go home. His wife told him that he was sick and needed to stay in the hospital. He promised her that he would come back the next day. The surgical staff had a different idea and told him he had to stay.
Some men think they are tough guys. No, they’re not. I didn’t see them in Afghanistan. I know tough guys. My church back home was filled with WWII soldiers…many of them paratroopers. There’s not enough drugs or alcohol to make me do what they did. But, they did what they had to do. That church established a school and a convent, and also produced five priests. Tough men can love Christ too.
Once, while I was serving at St. Gabriel’s parish in Charlotte, the men had prepared breakfast. I was waited on by a man with a German accent who had numbers tattooed on his arm. I knew that meant he had served in Hitler’s Special Forces. This man had served on both the eastern and western fronts. He was a bad man. But, he became a very good Catholic and died in the arms of Christ. So, even though it may take a while, there is hope that even the most evil can be transformed.
How will you apply this message to your life? Will you keep Christ in your heart so that Satan cannot take possession? Will you avoid enabling those who have evil in their hearts?