Of Crusades

Today's crusades are declared and fought within our own hearts and in the very heart of our communities.

It would be folly to naively assume that anyone is a stranger to strife in what he has formed in his mind ought to be a loving family of Christ. Many of us have suffered our own share of injustices in what ought to have been a just Church, our own share of poverty in what should've been a Church for the poor, our share of disappointments in what our eyes tell us are horrifyingly hypocritical actions of love and we sometimes accidentally stumble upon 'politics' in what should be a Body entirely worked according to God's plans.

In face of such confusion and loneliness as we gaze upon the faces of our brothers and sisters who, (in minds already poisoned with cynicism) we think, ought to reflect the face of Christ, we tend to either sweep what we feel to the back of our minds and don on shrugging cloaks of as-long-as-my-own-heart-is-in-the-right-place, or retreat and lose faith in the Church, lose faith in people and lose faith in ourselves generally.

Wars defeat their purposes.

If we were to take a retreating step, we will realise that perhaps, we ourselves after all, have not been the clearest mirrors of love, that we expect others to shine the light of Christ on us before we're able to reflect its beam. Understandably, it is disheartening when we experience wickedness around us, when we are disappointed in those we placed our hopes in, when we feel helpless and when we think that all that we believe in are but utter lies. However, we will come to realise that the Church is just, the Church is loving, the Church is poor- has been 2000 years ago, still is and will always be. But the Churchs needs us. Her people may be broken but she, the Bride of Christ, shines God's healing light through the cracks we have punctured in Her. And this light has to shine from within, it has to begin with our willingness, with our prayers and acts of love- one small one at a time.

We need to reexamine our own thoughts again and again, because we fall prey to the evil in them every day. But that is okay, we will simply try harder the next day. We need to learn to see our neighbour through the eyes of God because often our own eyes are heavily clogged. We need to learn to say 'no' when we feel the desire to please others at the expense of the will of God. We need to learn all these without ever giving up, even when it seems pointless, even when it seems we're the only ones at it- because, we're not. The smallest fibre of will, of good intent and the quietest of prayers are rendered to God Himself and He transforms them into His mercy and goodness.

We need to fight the war against the war, with weapons of love and forgiveness and coats of chivalry.

"We humbly ask for forgiveness for the part that each of us with his or her behaviors has played in such evils thus contributing to disrupting the face of the church. At the same time, as we confess our sins let us forgive the faults committed by others towards us." -Blessed John Paul II in his apology for the crusades.