Quote from: Maria Regina

Therefore, we need to be engaged in unceasing prayers. And most importantly, we cannot give into hate.

I am finding that harder to do, not giving into hate as well as anger and absolute frustration.  We live in a contentious world and are more divided than ever.  

Someone here mentioned Malachi Martin.  I have wanted to get his talks on CDs because we only have them on cassettes (we got them in the nineties as they came out), but we live from hand to mouth and cannot afford them.  My husband often mentions him and what he said.  One of the things he said that was prophetic (and this was, again, in the nineties) is that we had already lived the best years of our lives in this country, and that everything would get worse.   He was right.

This morning I had a dream, like a scene from a movie. Now I usually do not give much importance to these kinds of dreams, but in this dream I was faced with a moral dilemma: (a) lay down my life and let a criminal kill me, or (b) run that person over with my car, and possibly face death with murderous thoughts in my head.

I awoke before the nightmare could continue.

However, that dream has stayed with me particularly because we hear of freeway and parking lot shootings all the time here in California.

If a driver is faced with a man standing on the sidewalk holding a gun pointed directly at his car and him as he is exiting a very small parking lot, where there is only one exit, what is the moral thing to do?

Christ's commandment to LOVE?

You mean Matthew 22:39-40?

It is love thy neighbour, not any random criminal attacking you, whom you have the right to slain in self-defense.

Correct, but two more scenarios could happen. That criminal may run away in fear as he sees my car barreling down on him,

You couldn't have known, and have to act at the best of your intel at the moment of reaction.

or he could be determined to kill me even at the risk of losing his own life.

Then trying to run him over is surely better than remaining still, in hindsight.

If in defending myself and in trying to run over that criminal with my car, I am killed by a bullet through the windshield,

Great.


 

and my car goes out of control and hits innocent bystanders

What kind of speed do you reckon you can pick up between you being still exiting a very small parking lot seeing a man holding a gun and pointing it at you and you losing consciousness due to your injury?

Plus, even if that happened, you wouldn't be responsible, just as you aren't for actions you only accidentally commit, for instance during a car accident itself.

"What if I were doing 5 mph less? What if I left home 5 minutes earlier?"

Remember, God is ultimately in control, and could have stopped everything if He so chose.

 what does it profit me if I have anger, fear, and hatred in my soul when I approach the Lord Jesus Christ as my Judge?

You mean the same Lord Jesus Christ who commanded genocide of entire peoples? That wiped out ALL humanity except Noah and his family with the Deluge?
That sanctioned capital punishment for relatively minor offences like fornication or adultery?  

This morning I had a dream, like a scene from a movie. Now I usually do not give much importance to these kinds of dreams, but in this dream I was faced with a moral dilemma: (a) lay down my life and let a criminal kill me, or (b) run that person over with my car, and possibly face death with murderous thoughts in my head.

I awoke before the nightmare could continue.

However, that dream has stayed with me particularly because we hear of freeway and parking lot shootings all the time here in California.

If a driver is faced with a man standing on the sidewalk holding a gun pointed directly at his car and him as he is exiting a very small parking lot, where there is only one exit, what is the moral thing to do?

There is nothing murderous about self-defense, if it is necessary.  Though I will say that if I had a choice, I don't think that I would run the person over for the following reasons:

1.  The man might not actually shoot anyways...

2.  If he is a criminal, I would rather die and give him the chance to convert rather than killing him while he is such...

Thanks be to God that it was a dream!  :-)

Anger itself is not a virtue; but a passion (one of the eleven human passions), which if left unbridled, becomes disordered, but with proper direction can be turned into something positive such as zeal or courage for the glory of God. This is for example, what Our Lord exhibited in the cleaning of the Temple; or what St. john Chrystostom speaks of when he says: "He who is not angry when he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is a hotbed of many vices"

If we are not angered by the triumph of evil, then we do no sufficiently love the good. There is a proper place then for the practice of rightful anger.  

In relation to the contrast between good and evil anger, here is a practical rule of thumb: The utmost in virtue would be manifested in one who fought with great courage and zeal for the glory of God and the things that pertain to goodness and virtue (even natural virtue), while at the same time practicing lamb-like meekness in the face of personal attacks against himself.

If in defending myself and in trying to run over that criminal with my car, I am killed by a bullet through the windshield, and my car goes out of control and hits innocent bystanders,

The guilt will be on the criminal for trying to attack/kill you in the first place. Your car going out control and hitting a bystander would not be your fault. It's a random circuмstance resulting from the evil intent of the attacker.

what had its what does it profit me if I have anger, fear, and hatred in my soul when I approach the Lord Jesus Christ as my Judge?

Even with simple self-defense, there is an element of self-preservation that could involve anger or hatred, or thoughts to kill the other so that he cannot kill me.

You seem to suffer a mild form of scrupulosity. Talk to a traditional priest.

There was only one priest who said that I was scrupulous, but he was a very liberal Jesuit, who was trying to put me down for being a traditionalist. I ceased seeing him immediately.

My other confessors who were Traditionalists have told me that I have a very sensitive conscience, and that God has blessed me. They said to beware of modernist priests who try to impose a blind obedience when one is struggling to avoid sin.  I have been trying to put aside my own will, avoid temptations, and do the will of God, Who wills our salvation.

~~~~~

Returning to that dream, I guess there would a third alternative, and that would be to park the car as quickly and far away from the man as possible. Then to duck between the other cars and to run quietly away to safety. That would be the only rational choice.

My other confessors who were Traditionalists have told me that I have a very sensitive conscience, and that God has blessed me. They said to beware of modernist priests who try to impose a blind obedience when one is struggling to avoid sin.  

I'm sorry to say this, but from the little I have experienced about "Traditional" Catholicism, it's utterly corrupted by lieberalism already.

By what I see and hear, even ultra-conservative "Catholics" alive today would be considered extremely liberal let's say in the 14th century.

I'm guessing 99.9999% of so-called "Traditional Catholics" would utterly refuse to adopt the Old Law if HYPOTHETICALLY God commanded them out of sheer conflict with their individual moral ideas.

They find the OT's morality (God-given and sanctioned, often directly commanded) to be cruel, barbaric, inhumane, etc.