THIRTEENTH DAY OF LENT

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  – Matthew 5:11-12

Justice is inevitable in the “Justice Christianus”.  If not fulfilled in our lifetime, it will still be fulfilled.  The justice on earth will be made perfect someday.  This Justice Christianus is a justice becoming more and more perfected until it is Perfect fulfilled.

No, this justice delayed is not a theology of pie-in-the-sky, but rather a justice in the making.  It is declared and pursued in this Present Moment but will not be perfected until that ultimate moment.  The justice sought today WILL be satisfied, if not today then one day.

Why is this understanding of patient justice so important?  Why is vital that we understand that justice is something that is going on to perfection?

History has shown that yesterday’s state of justice is never the justice that could be.  At one time, laws in certain countries protected the rights of slaveholders.  But as time passed, laws in many of those countries that slavery was never a just institution.  We have always beheld justice through a foggy lens, but with the process of the Christification of human thought, the layers of fog become fewer and fewer.  As is always the case in the Divine process of revelation, over time more of understanding is progressively revealed.  Thus we are never imprisoned in the unknown injustice of our times, but await that day when all justice is perfected.

As Christians, we seek clearer and clearer, fairer and fairer, more and more universal understanding of justice.  We move toward a more perfectly administered system of justice, not one shackled to former understandings.  For to do this would be to deny the ongoing revelation by God as God teaches us more and more of how matters are considered heaven so that we might apply them more perfectly on earth.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz