Dispatches from Fr. Charitas
Friday, May 18, 2018

Cain rather than raging at God, raged instead at his brother Abel. Frustrated was Cain and his anger seethed and he struck down an innocent soul. Possibly this is the curse of Cain upon us, we lash out in frustration at life itself.

Within our mortal souls there lives a spark of divinity but also a spark of violence. From ancient times we have believed in a God who rages as well as a God who loves. The rage we call wrath, the love we call mercy, and if it be in us God’s highest creation, then surely it must also be in our Creator. The God of Cain and the God of Abel, forever dealing with each other with the soul of the One God. The humanity of Cain and the humanity of Abel, forever struggling with each other within our common humanity. The Lord help us, for we have the blood of Cain within us and it struggles with our inner sense of Divinity.

Yes, Christ taught that God is a Holy Love, yet even Christ referred now and then to God’s Wrath. As with our human ways, God’s wrath seems to rise in God’s time of frustration, not with life but with the workings of Man.

I believe, though I have not always believed, that Christ was God’s Way of dealing with His Wrath. “I shall from this moment lean upon Mercy so that fear and the rage might subside.

My how we rage in our times of frustration and sometimes the rage becomes violence.

Always in Christ’s Service,
Fr. Charitas de la Cruz