{"id":213,"date":"2014-12-16T18:23:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T23:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=213"},"modified":"2014-12-18T10:17:55","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T15:17:55","slug":"angels-and-demons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":"Angels and Demons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pakistan<\/a>A word must be said about the killing of children, and innocents in general, in light of the events of the past couple of days, the hostage-taking in Sydney, resulting in 3 deaths, including the gunman, and the massacre at a military school in Pakistan, where over 140 died, most of them children at the hands of Taliban \u2018extremists\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What used to be off-limits in any kind of war is now a daily occurrence.\u00a0 The concept of \u2018total war\u2019, of course, goes back to ancient times:\u00a0 One need only ponder the command given to King Saul to wipe out all the inhabitants of Amalek, men, women and children, even the beasts, putting them \u2018under the ban\u2019.\u00a0 This, we may assume, was the provisional morality of ancient Man.\u00a0 Physical death as a punishment for sin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet Christ brought a New Law\u00a0 of\u00a0 grace and forgiveness.\u00a0 Sin need no longer be atoned for by killing, for Christ died for all.\u00a0 His redemptive sacrifice assumed all other suffering. There will still be suffering and death, of course, that we can offer up in union with Christ, as members of His Mystical Body.\u00a0 But we can no longer ourselves kill as a punishment for sin<\/em>.\u00a0 Whatever provsional morality God permitted in former ages is now gone, forever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a sad fact that various strains of Islam do not get this.\u00a0 We are no longer to act as God\u2019s agents of retribution; vengeance is mine<\/em>, sayeth the Lord, and we must leave all judgement to God.\u00a0 Further, as we all know, we are bad judges of sin, especially our own.\u00a0 To paraphrase Christ, we cannot see the beams for the splinters, nor the forest for the shrub in our way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, many aspects of \u2018the West\u2019 are decadent and immoral, but the pride of puritanical tyranny, is in many ways, worse, for such a stance makes us immune to the mercy of God, both for ourselves and others. It is the diabolical sin, to make ourselves God, and mete out punishment in His name as we see fit. We must use reason and dialogue to convert others, as well as the example of holiness (or at least striving for holiness) in our own lives, by the grace and mercy of God…<\/p>\n

\"angry<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of that grace is learning to laugh at ourselves. \u00a0There are no jokes in Islam, so purportedly said the Ayatollah.\u00a0 No kidding.\u00a0 In the strains of Islam we see in the news daily, there is a lot of anger, gnashing of teeth, resentment, thirst for revenge, and, apparently, no moral line in the sand for women and children.\u00a0 Total war it is.\u00a0 But total war is what they will get in return.\u00a0 To murder the children of officers in the Pakistani military is not a good idea.\u00a0 Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth, and as one commentator mentioned, those soldiers, by and large, are not under the same restraints as the military in the West.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Apparently, the Taliban and ISIL do not like life that much, their own or others, which goes along with the loss of a sense of humour.\u00a0 Angels can fly, said G.K.Chesterton, because they take themselves so lightly.\u00a0 We may extend this aphorism that devils cannot fly, because they are, quite literally, too damned serious.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I just hope all those children were taken up to heaven, laughing with the angels.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

December 16, 2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A word must be said about the killing of children, and innocents in general, in light of the events of the past couple of days, the hostage-taking in Sydney, resulting in 3 deaths, including the gunman, and the massacre at a military school in Pakistan, where over 140 died, most of them children at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpaulmeenan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}