NOTE: This is one of a continuing series of blogs on the current situation in our West Chester, Ohio parish.
SOME PHRASES in prayers make a lasting impression on a child and he carries them with him forever.
One that sticks out for me comes from The Stations of the Cross for Children. It describes the mob dispersing after Our Lord’s death on the cross:
“The people are all going away. I think some of them are beginning to be sorry.”
This shows in a few words how the wicked passions that one can whip up in crowd — resentments, rage, indignation, vengefulness, self-righteousness — must eventually subside.
Sure, the electrifying sense of solidarity against a common enemy feels great. Our leaders keep telling us our cause is “the truth” or “justice” as they rail against the enemy. All our resentments are justified, all our suspicions are confirmed, and all our worse fears will come to pass unless we act together.
The absolute rightness and the moral purity of our anger and revulsion against the enemy could not be clearer or more self-evident… until the crowd disperses.
For then, you face your conscience alone.
Most went home from Golgotha, no doubt, telling themselves they had done a great thing. But as passions cooled and the voice of conscience grew louder and louder, each man would have found it harder and harder to avoid the real truth — the one about himself.
That he had been manipulated, and given in to his worse instincts.
Those who of late have whispered hate into your ear and poured it into your computer screens will seek to reassure you that your worst instincts are your best. They will do all they can to keep stoked the fires of hate, revenge and division.
No surprise there. Sicut erat in principio…
But you — not the crowd and its leaders — must answer for your actions.
Isn’t it about time for you to begin to feel sorry?