Okay, in the light of morning, I realize that was really, really rude. I apologize to everyone who was offended by the way I put my response. I may have just been overreacting to something I saw as being out of touch with the Faith as I know it, but... I really should have found a better way to say it. Maybe like this...
The mystery of the cross is a very beautiful thing. But it shouldn't negate our natural compassion that we should have out of Christian charity for ANYONE suffering that way. On the contrary, the more we love the person suffering, the deeper our natural compassion should be.
So, too, even if we love our enemies, the sorrow or compassion we would feel for them, even watching them receive some painful but just reward for some wickedness or evil act, should be deep and real, because we should not be able to watch any person suffer without feeling true and earnest compassion for them as fellow creatures of God (brothers and sisters under the same Father, even if they refuse to follow Him or acknowledge that), since Christ loves them all and commanded us to love them truly.
In this way, too, we can also tell that our love for our neighbor is real, and is what it should be. As the Bible says, it is easy to love those who are good, or who are good to us. But God commanded us to love our neighbor (even the bad ones) even as He loved us. If we could watch even a sinful man or an enemy of ours suffer, and not feel true compassion for them, then that would seem to imply our love that we have for them as Christians (toward those others God loves, even if they refused to be saved by Him), is lacking. If we can see someone who is very evil, or who has hurt or offended us, suffer, and feel true and deep compassion for that person, then we can know that our Christian love is what it should be... real, and not in word only.
By the same token, once you can have real love and compassion for those who the world would never pity, because Christ made and loves them, then it should be all the easier to have compassion for the suffering of the innocent, which even naturally speaking should come easily to us. (Since even the heathens and pagans love those "worthy" of love, and would have compassion on their friends or relatives.)
Of course, Christ is the MOST innocent, and our most beloved friend and Father. Therefore it follows that the compassion we should have for His sufferings should be the deepest, and also the easiest to stir up, since, even as watching an earthly parent we love dearly suffer, would be painful and hard, in spite of their having offended God in their lives, so watching that most tender and perfect Father suffer, "Who neither did nor could commit a sin", should come all the more easily, and be all the more deep and intense for us.
That is what I was trying to say. Not sure why I was such a jerk last night, but, of course there was no excuse for it. The above is what I should have said, and what I was trying to say. I just said it like an idiot.
Yet another classic example of condemning in others what is chiefly wrong with one's self.
Mea culpa....
:sad:
Topic: Rejoice at the crucifixion? (Read 555 times)