DETTERS DESPITE THE CRUEL THINGS YOU HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT ME I WILL NOT BE SEEKING REVENGE...
… for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
says the Lord.” No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give
him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not
be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (RSV)
Let’s linger over that image: “heap burning coals upon his
head.” This seems to be a fairly gruesome suggestion.
Does
it not sound as if this passage is recommending to be good to those with whom we
are not getting along precisely so that we can hurt them even more? Isn’t that
to make a deeply Christian act and work of mercy into something profoundly
antithetical to Christ? Isn’t it tantamount to wishing upon our persecutors eternal fire
of punishment?
While
that phrase could be interpreted in a sinister way, we can turn to Scripture
itself for some help. Firstly, the image itself comes from Proverbs 25:21-22:
“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him
water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will
reward you.” St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274) commenting on this passage reminds us
that in the amazing and difficult Song of Songs 8:6-7 about
love, charity, that “its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” The Doctor of
Grace, St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) remarks in De doctrina christiana 3,16,
24:
Do not doubt, then, that the
expression is figurative; and, while it is possible to interpret it in two
ways, one pointing to the doing of an injury, the other to a display of
superiority, let charity on the contrary call you back to benevolence, and
interpret the coals of fire as the burning groans of penitence by which a man’s
pride is cured who bewails that he has been the enemy of one who came to his
assistance in distress. In the same way, when our Lord says, “He who loveth his
life shall lose it,” we are not to think that He forbids the prudence with
which it is a man’s duty to care for his life, but that He says in a figurative
sense, “Let him lose his life”—that is, let him destroy and lose that perverted
and unnatural use which he now makes of his life, and through which his desires
are fixed on temporal things so that he gives no heed to eternal.
Pass the sick bag Alice. Gene is having a fit of pious cant. Of all the disgusting qualities that make you such a loathsome, contemptible little creep, it’s when you posture, in an act of monumental hypocrisy, as a Christian saint and martyr that I most want to meet you so that I could kick your balls to a pulp. There is a sense that you are already being punished for what you are simply by being what you are and not caring how horrible a human being this makes you. But a brisk tattoo of kicks in the nads would help to drive the point home.
ReplyDeleteAnd even when he is posturing in this repulsive guise, he still can't think of a single thing to say for himself. The above is plagiarised
ReplyDeletefrom a blog by a real writer, Father John Zuhlsdorf - Preparation for the Holy SacrificeSacred Scripture: 3rd Sunday after Epiphany: “‘Vengeance is YOURS’, saith the Lord!” No… wait… that’s not how it goes. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf January 20, 2023.
Sickening hypocisy from the master of literary theft - continuing the dismal practice of academic theft that helped him obtain his degree all those years ago...
Oooh! Matron!
ReplyDeleteGene, why do you bother? No-one reads this apology for a blog, and I have, once again, effectively stalled it. And I will keep on doing so: five minutes a day to shove a roman candle up your arse is time well spent. You are a pitiful apology for a writer, and a disgusting archetype of a canting Pharisee. Give up, crawl back to Marianne, and ask if she will take you back. She is worth a hundred of you, so she might.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, had an interesting lunch today with the manager of the hotel you stayed at in Whitley Bay some time ago, He was genuinely astonished that a man who had asked him where he could find the nearest catholic church was also the man who had rented two of the filthiest movies on the hotel's menu.
Do you hear a distant rumbling, Gene? it's the avalanche of humiliation which is about to engulf you. A shame that it will damage members of your family but, as you once said, thin skinned people shouldn't indulge in rip-roaring banter in a spirit of good humoured to and fro.
But did you really piss the bed at the Premier? If that was then, you must be in nappies by now.
"But did you really piss the bed at the Premier? "
ReplyDeleteCaught out in lies again Detterling. On that Whitsun visit Marianne, I and our friends stayed at the Royal Hotel on the seafront. Very good it was to - with an authentic Italian restaurant next door.
Re my visit to Whitley Bay there is nothing you can unearth that will be in any way harming to me.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting that it turned out that you know the parish priest in Whitley Bay, Fr Andrew Faley. But I'm a little worried. He seemed a good guy, but If he is a friend of yours could he be of the dreaded Pinko/Liberal ilk? Please tell me it isn't so.
He is a kind, gentle man, a Christian of charity, tolerance and the utmost integrity. The complete opposite of your nasty, canting hypocrisy and self-basting pietism, not to mention your pretentiousness and habitual lying - to yourself and everyone else.
Delete"self-basting pietism"
DeleteHa! Ha! Ha! I must remember that one.
And steal it and pass it off as yours. Which I see you have done. Shameless.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the Royal, it’s not what I can unearth so much as what I can invent to your discredit that you can’t disprove: your spying on couples having sex on the lower prom, your dropping your phone on the floor at the Italian and upskirting the waitress while picking it up, Marianne coming into your room and finding you with your ear pressed to a wineglass against the wall and your willy in your other hand while the couple next door had sex, that kind of a thing.