Saint Clement was elected in the last years of the first century as the fourth Pope. He was old enough to have known Saints Peter and Paul as a young man. And like them, he lived in a “calamitous” time, when Christians were being martyred by the state, as he would be too.
But, curiously, his most famous epistle was not about martyrdom, but about an even deeper problem: the in-fighting between Christians over all sort of matters. “Why do the members of Christ tear each other apart?,” he writes. “Why do we rise up against our own body with such madness? Have we forgotten that we are all members one of another?”
We can relate to such a sad situation, living, as we do, in a time when everyone seems to be at everyone else’s throat. On some days it seems like everyone’s just looking for an excuse to yell at you. If it’s not politics, it’s religion, race or lifestyle or the knowledge that hate generates more social media clicks than love ever could.
We are incessantly voting each other off the island to the place where all the bad people go. Why can’t we just love another, as Christ first loved us? Perhaps, it is because, as Dorothy Day once wrote, “Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
And she’s right, of course. Love in practice is a really messy thing. It means instinctively caring about every person we meet, loving one another as Christ has first loved us.
It means resisting the temptation to call your spouse stupid, for that stupid thing he just said. It means saying thank you often and meaning it. It means quickly forgiving the hurtful thing and agonizingly working for reconciliation, with everyone.
For love is not just the opposite of hate, it’s also the only way to peace in our hearts and in our world.
Perhaps Dostoevsky said it best:
“Keep watch over your heart and confess your sins to yourself unceasingly. . .Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialists…hate not even the wickedness. Remember them and pray: Save, O Lord, all those who have none to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray…For, O Lord, I am less than all men. . .”
That, of course, is the opposite of being Holier than Thou.
It is being Christ for others. The same Christ who walked through the door they had locked out of fear and said "Peace be with you.” And then he breathed on them with the Holy Spirit, that their sins might be forgiven.
The same Christ who recreated them in his own image and likeness, in the image and likeness of the one who looked down on those who had nailed him to a tree and said, “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
What a different world this would be if we just let the Holy Spirit bring us to life again, filling our hearts with love and mercy in our families and in our world.
It’s not hard, as Mother Teresa used to say: “Just smile five times a day at someone you don't really want to smile at” she once said.”
Let the Spirit free your hearts. Even when you are afraid. Even when you are angry. Listen for that knock on the door you have locked. And let the Lord breathe his Spirit upon you and give you the peace the world cannot give.
