Saturday May 4, 2024

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Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” (John 15:18)

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Good News Reflection for:

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 4, 2024

Today’s Readings:

Acts 16:1-10
Psalm 100:1-3, 5
John 15:18-21
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050424.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-may-4-2024

How to speak like Christ in today’s cancel culture

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus did not intend to scare us off when he said, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” He gave us his Holy Spirit to embolden us and to strengthen us to withstand persecutions. He wants to raise us up from being victims to being victors.

When pondering how to speak like Christ in today’s cancel culture, consider this. In most of the cultures where our readers live, our anti-Christian societies have made it popular to cancel or bully into silence anyone who speaks any truth that challenges their worldly ways.

Cancel culture uses confusion, the lack of clear thinking, fear, and anger to shut us up. Their premise is: “Free speech is fine as long as you confine it to your own group. I have the right to demand that you don’t say (or post on social media) what I don’t want to hear.”

It’s time we stop being intimidated by this nonsense. While it’s unproductive to try to convince anyone to change their minds (Jesus said, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” in Matthew 7:6), we do need to be warriors for the Kingdom of God. Not wimps.

Imitating Christ, we learn how to do be holy warriors.

How to speak like Christ in today’s cancel culture? Rather than argue, we can calmly respond to the cancellation mentality with, “Freedom of speech means that you have the right to not listen to what I say, the right to not read what I post. If you don’t like what I say, ignore it.” And then we ignore their rebellious retorts. Don’t get sucked into a debate.

When people are not living by faith, or when they think they have faith but they worship a god of their own design, they usually cannot face being wrong. It feels like took big a risk, and so a self-defensive emotional outrage is triggered. They’ve become so deluded by the devil’s lies that they get angry (they feel the devil’s anger) toward us.

The good news is: They are what scripture calls “chaff”. They look big and brutal but “they are like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor…” (Hosea 13:3).

When we can see them this way — as they really are — it inoculates us from their intimidation tactics. We can stand up strong in the courage that comes from the Holy Spirit.

This is the kind of followers Christ needs now.

“They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is this so-called Almighty God that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’ But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from their plans. Have you noticed … how often they are like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?” (Job 21:14-18.)

And here’s what my favorite scripture, Psalm 1 (NIV), says about it:

Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away….

As we approach Pentecost Sunday, remember how necessary it is to have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is how we become empowered and emboldened to know and live and speak the truth.

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, set me on fire! Come Holy Spirit, renew me. Come Holy Spirit, fill me. Come Holy Spirit, I want to be fully alive in a personal relationship with You. Come Holy Spirit, You have my permission to change me. Help me to be effective in the mission of Christ rescuing sinners from the unquenchable fire of Hell. Amen!

It isn’t everything, but this a good start for all of us to reflect on how to speak like Christ in today’s cancel culture.

© 2024 by Terry A. Modica

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