Thy Kingdom Come

Every Sunday at Mass we say the Our Father and immediately after there has been added in recent years a Sign of Peace.   Well fine I have no objections but is this shaking of the hands, this mutual inclusive or exclusive friendship all that there is to Christian Love.    Or put it another way is this 'love of neighbour' all that Christ wanted when he established his Kingdom.    Love can be a very deceptive word and as human beings we use it on many occasions for our own motives and the 'feel good about ourselves' factor.  And I judge myself as often guilty of this.   As creatures made by God we all have that capacity to love within us whatever our faith and whatever our background.  No one race, no one creed, can claim a monopoly.   This love is nurtured in us by our parents, their love for one another ended in our birth and through  the experience of a loving home and a loving family we learned to love others.  But family love is a special way of loving for it brings us so close that members would almost die for one another.    Therefore when we say on Sunday "Thy Kingdom Come" we are praying not just for the love of neighbour but the love of family and just as we would be hypocrites to not love our neighbour, because such love is impossible we would be just as hypocritical if we accepted that stable families are impossible  If we talk about an 'ideal', and let us rid ourselves of rules and regulations, we are not building the Kingdom in which Christ is King.   When Christ said Kingdom he meant Kingdom.  A Kingdom has its own regulations and customs, its own 'seeking the common good', its own interpretation of what is right and wrong.   Those who offend against its laws are in a sense rebels within.   They do not accept the rule of Christ the King.  But what then is the model of this Kingdom.   It is all in the teachings of Jesus.   The first place where a child finds love is within the family so the duty of the citizens is to protect marriage, and what a mess theWestern Church has made of this wonderful Sacrament.   Now there is no person on earth who was more opposed to Divorce than Jesus himself.   He told his listeners that Moses allowed Divorce because of the 'hardness of their hearts'   What would He think of those who ignore His Church and maintain it is 'only rules.   They certainly do not have any concept of the Kingdom.  Again there is the insistence that all the Church is really about is giving to the poor and young people sleeping around "Well never mind, as long as they give to good causes".    BUT THEY ARE NOT BUILDING THE KINGDOM, and in secular words they are not building the perfect society.  They are destroying the work of Jesus.   They have no understanding of the word love.     Now having said so many challenging things I will no doubt be judged as 'lacking in charity' because this ad hominem is the only answer those who wish to follow Jesus closely get back from those who follow him conditionally.    But let me say now that I have full compassion for those who have been hurt in marriage, for the young girls who have been used and abused and left as single mothers, for the feelings of worthlessness that the present sexual climate has inflicted on so many young men and women, and there are few Catholic parents who have not experienced the heartache of picking up the piecers when their child's heart has been broken.     How are these things overcome, how can we restore the Kingdom?   We must first acknowledge the places where love is failing, in our homes, in our schools and in our parishes.   We must admit our guilt in the matter by stopping the nonsense that faithful marriage is an 'ideal', it is a right of everyone in the Kingdom.    And even if it is unpopular we must not agree that divorce and remarriage outside the Church is just one of those things  in our wonderfully inclusive Church.   It is not just 'one of those things', it is something we have a duty to admit as injurious to the Body of Christ but give mercy within the law by welcoming and indeed acknowledging our own guilt as a Church and helping the injured party to live with Christ and his Commandments and not go against His rules.    That way they will find Christ in their lives and play a part in spreading His Kingdom.   It is our failure that they find themselves in this situation but then they too must look at the Kingdom and realise that what they do will affect others and their turning their backs on his teachings will lead another generation to the hell they have lived through.        .  

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