Hate and love.

People who hate God also hate those who try to live for God with love. That is why it is not rare that for love and goodness, man repays man with hatred.

Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you” (Jn 15:18). And he immediately explains why this hatred exists: “If you were of the world, the world would love what is his, but because you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, the world hates you” (Jn 15:19). These words belong to the second part of the farewell speech of the Lord Jesus at the Last Supper. And specifically, a disharmonious tone crept into that message of love, by which he wants to prepare his apostles for the fact that although they will try to sow love around them, they will reap the hatred of the world for this effort because not all have Jesus as leader in their lives. Those who do not have it hate Jesus, and because his disciples belong to Christ, they will be subject to a wave of hatred similar to that of Christ himself. In addition to the fact that Jesus chose them from the world, that is, from the power of evil, they no longer belong to the world, and the world knows how to take revenge for this because the world loves only what belongs to it, which does not exceed its boundaries, principles, and way of life. Therefore, the world’s revenge for friendship with Jesus is most often manifested by the persecution of Jesus’ disciples. Jesus draws their attention to this and at the same time wants to please them, to encourage them, that even he himself was repaid in this way by the world. With these words, the apostles begin to realize the union, the bond with Christ, that they will have to suffer with Christ, but that they will also know the joy of the successes they will achieve while spreading the Gospel of Jesus. Because many people will accept faith and believe in the Lord Jesus, and thus the number of Christians will increase.

Likewise, we also have to reckon with the fact that we will not avoid the hatred of the world because of the teachings of Jesus. That’s why we have to reckon with the hostility of the world, we will experience humiliation, and even we have to reckon with persecution for Christ. All this is the tax that a Christian pays for his obedience and faithfulness to Christ. We have to put up with this and not look for an escape route. We realize that when there are confrontations with evil in our lives, this is also a necessary thing for the Christian life. The history of the Church tells us about countless multitudes of those who were hated by the world and had to lay down their lives for God.

After all, at this time we remember St. Stanislav, the bishop of Kraków, whom the king has executed as an “inconvenient” person. We remember Pope Martin I., who leads the Church in difficult times, the boat Petrus. Although he had to sacrifice his own life, he did not betray. We remember Juraj, who as a soldier and commander knows how to judge who is a superior officer, so he prefers martyrdom.

However, not all of them died a martyr’s death. We have a long line of believers: Dominik Savio dies young, but the motto from the day he was on the first St. received, he kept: Better to die than to sin.