{"id":242,"date":"2010-06-14T08:26:15","date_gmt":"2010-06-14T12:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=242"},"modified":"2010-06-14T08:27:45","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T12:27:45","slug":"justice-or-revenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/justice-or-revenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice or Revenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gospel reading for today<\/a> is Jesus’ teaching on the familiar passage “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:23-24<\/a>).\u00a0 People often use this passage from\u00a0Exodus to\u00a0justify punishment, especially the death penalty.\u00a0 John\u00a0J. McDermoot in “Weekday Homily Helps” (St. Anthony Messenger\u00a0Press) for June 14, 2010 says that the passage was not meant\u00a0to justify revenge.\u00a0 Instead, he says that it was meant to put limits on revenge done out of anger.<\/p>\n

We are human.\u00a0 We have emotions.\u00a0 When someone wrongs us in some way we can become angry.\u00a0 It can seem so natural but we must keep our anger in check.\u00a0 When people act out of revenge they might wish to do a greater violence than was done to them.\u00a0 Thus, an eye for an eye<\/em> is meant to limit revenge.<\/p>\n

Jesus takes it one step farther.\u00a0 He tells us to turn the other check; a tall order when we know we have been wronged.<\/p>\n

So when a person commits a crime, what are we supposed to do?\u00a0 Do we turn the other cheek?\u00a0 Anger should never be what controls our actions but we should work to ensure justice is done.\u00a0 If a person has committed a crime, they should be punished but the goal is not punishment itself.\u00a0 The goal of the punishment should always be to help the person to see the “error of their ways” and to change their behavior for the better.<\/p>\n

So we have two ways of looking at punishment; justice<\/em> and revenge<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Revenge is guided by anger and anger stands in the way of love.\u00a0 Anger<\/a> is this way is one of the seven deadly sins.\u00a0 Justice can be <\/em>done as an act of love but not just love towards the victim but also toward the criminal; showing concern for them as one of God’s children.<\/p>\n

There is also an element of protection to both revenge and justice.\u00a0 We need to protect people in general from crime and violence.\u00a0 Thus, when the crime warrants it, the criminal is placed in prison to make sure they cannot continue to commit act of violence.<\/p>\n

When looking at this as punishment and protection, justice<\/em> and revenge<\/em> may not seem all that different.\u00a0 On the outside, they may not be.\u00a0 On the inside the difference is important; the difference between love and anger.\u00a0 Love brings us closer to God, anger divides us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When we, or someone we love, are the victim of a crime love can seem difficult.\u00a0 Forgiveness can seem impossible.\u00a0 So we turn justice over to God’s will.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The gospel reading for today is Jesus’ teaching on the familiar passage “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:23-24).\u00a0 People often use this passage from\u00a0Exodus to\u00a0justify punishment, especially the death penalty.\u00a0 John\u00a0J. McDermoot in “Weekday Homily Helps” (St. Anthony Messenger\u00a0Press) for June 14, 2010 says that the passage was not …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Justice or Revenge’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-3U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}