The virtuous and vicious cycles

WHILE it is true that love, and everything related to it,

should be repaid with love, its opposite should be avoided. That is,

hatred, and everything related to it, should not be repaid with

hatred.

            The former creates a virtuous cycle that we should foster.

Love generates more love. The latter is a vicious cycle that we should

try to eliminate as soon as possible. That’s because hatred can only

breed more hatred.

  

            We should always be aware that whatever we do always tends

to take a certain life and can grow, multiply and spread. That is part

of our human condition where our human acts possess a certain

spirituality and morality. These acts of ours are not inert. They have

a certain dynamic.

             Of course, we should know that in the end it is the good

that leads us to eternal life, while evil leads us eventually to

death, though it can seem lively and advantageous for a while. But in

the end, the advantages of evil can only be deceiving, a proof that

the good will always prevail in the end, since we are all in God’s

hands.

  

            We can cite St. Paul’s words as basis for assertion. “For

the wages of sin is death,” he said, “but the gift of God is eternal

life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6,23) The gift of God, of course,

is the supreme good we can ever have.

  

            We should be more pro-active in creating an atmosphere of

goodness wherever we are. As one saint would put it, let us drown evil

with an abundance of good. This should always be our attitude and

constant practice.

  

            Remember Christ saying, “If someone slaps you on your

right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Mt 5,39) We have to avoid

what is referred to as the Law of Talion: eye for an eye, tooth for a

tooth.

  

            Difficult? Of course, it is. But impossible? Definitely

not. God’s grace and our firm trust in God’s wise and merciful

providence can convert what may seem impossible to us to something

possible and doable.

  

            This point about the virtuous and vicious cycles is

especially relevant in the world of politics. That’s because it is in

politics where this notorious Law of Talion is commonly practiced. Our

politicians, and actually all of us, should know how to react properly

when some form of evil is hurled on them.

  

            Some people think that the Christian way of reacting to

evil is unrealistic. Bluntly said, they think that if one is

consistent with the Christian way of behaving, he will never find any

foothold in the world of politics.

             I believe this is a baseless fear. We have often ignored

the stable good produced when we do good and stay in the orbit of

love, and get easily seduced when we enjoy the immediate but very

transient advantages of evil.

  

            This is because we have not learned the value of Christ’s

cross or the value of suffering borne with Christ. We are notoriously

short-sighted and narrow-minded. We tend to consider only the

here-and-now, without framing it with the before-and-the-hereafter.