This week, I was at the Museum in Boston. (For the uninitiated, when you are in Boston and refer to the Museum, you are referring exclusively to the Museum of Fine Arts.) Many of my favorite works of art are there including The Seventh Plague of Egypt by John Martin. This particular time, as I looked over it, I was fascinated by a reality that is seen many times in human existence and of course in the Bible as well: When a great event happens and one side looks upon it with joy, and the other with terror. For example, if you have two sides in a war, one side say for example the civilians, has been defeated, their houses are destroyed. They are now living as refugees and their lives are pure horror. However, the other side rejoices because their enemy is defeated. They don’t see the human factor as much as that whatever pain they suffered at the hands of their enemies is gone and they will rejoice. Not so much at the destruction but at the end of the oppression.

Today, we are looking at Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. We look at these words of celebration. Indeed look closely at these words.

Brothers and sisters:

Notice how Paul says that you and I, if we are to be obedient to the Father,  must Rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks at all times.

How do we do that? We have to realize that we need to look at things differently than maybe we are trained to do. Every good time and every bad time, every set-back and every success there are all reasons for rejoicing, for in this moment we are trusting in the Lord at every step. This can be intensely difficult because we can find things easily that are not in themselves causes for rejoicing. However, what  Paul is doing is retraining the Thessalonians to no longer even think as they did before, but to have a new way of thinking and being rooted in Christ Jesus our Lord. When we do that our whole vision of the world we live in becomes different.

Let me give you an example of this from my own life. When I was in the seminary, a friend borrowed my car. It was stolen. Not a good thing and I had to deal with the hassle of a stolen car. However, I followed this formula, I praised God for the stolen car and I prayed for the person who stole it, crazy as that may seem.

Just under three months later, my car was recovered. However, by then I had bought another car that by the way I loved. It was actually a Datsun, which I could actually work on, I even changed the water pump in it, myself. I used to change the oil myself, etc. Loved it. When the other car was recovered, I now had two cars. Here I am a seminarian with two cars. Obviously, I did not need one and I loved the Datsun. There was a seminarian, now a priest, in the Archdiocese from Africa, who could not afford a car and needed one, so I gave him my “extra” car. The one that was stolen.

A great tragedy, turned out to be a benefit for another. Had I fretted viciously over this, then no one would have benefitted. It becomes with a whole new way of looking at the world around us and centered on Rejoicing always, praying without ceasing and giving thanks at all times. Now, granted I at time forget this, so don’t take me as a model, take that incident as model, yes. Do not take me as a model.

Too many times people dismiss our faith strictly as morality, but remember, you can be an atheist and live Catholic morality. Our faith calls us to have a deep relationship in Christ and a deep hope in Christ to the level that transform our entire world view.

This even goes back to what I was reflecting on in the John Martin Painting cited above: The Seventh Plague of Egypt. The obstinate oppressors see terror, but the oppressed see freedom.

In that painting, you see both at the same time, Moses and Aaron see the glory of God, the Egyptians see His wrath, however, both see exactly the same incident.

There are fascinating scenes in the Old Testament, that people describe as a vengeful, hateful God,  but again they are looking at it from the side of those who committed great evil and in that great evil created horrible injustice. God called them to repentance and they ignored Him again in their obstinate heart. What can be done? If God does nothing then this evil will eventually destroy all of humanity, so God destroys those whose evil is destroying the good. However, how do the oppressed look at this destruction, the same way that victors in war look upon it. Their oppression is over. Evil doers succumb to evil, the oppressed are freed.

In the New Testament, we have a different focus, that again calls us to look at events differently than the rest of the world. What Paul is telling us is see everything as an opportunity to grow in holiness. Let everything lead us closer to Christ, live, see and act in this way and you will become holy.

This can be difficult at times, yet, our ultimate call is to grow in holiness and we do so by looking at the world through the way of vision that Paul teaches,

You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook