{"id":21915,"date":"2015-12-11T15:57:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T21:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=21915"},"modified":"2017-04-17T21:58:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T01:58:34","slug":"going-to-the-extremes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/going-to-the-extremes\/","title":{"rendered":"Going to the Extremes","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for December 11th, 2015
Friday of the Second Week of Advent<\/p>\n

Liturgical texts\u00a0here<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\"extremes_Fotor\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE<\/b>\u00a0real danger at this hour in the world is not that there is so much confusion, but that we would get caught up in it ourselves<\/em>. In fact, panic, fear, and compulsive reactions are part of the Great Deception. It removes the soul from its center, which is Christ. Peace leaves, and with it, wisdom and the ability to see clearly. This is the real danger.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

People are beginning to go to the extremes. The middle ground of reason and respect, of listening and docility, is quickly disappearing. Courtesy, kindness, and deference are giving way to name-calling, hatred, and insistence. Left-wing, right-wing, conservative, liberal, terrorist, radical, dangerous, divisive, intolerant, hater, denier, biggot\u2026 these are the kind of words, once reserved for true extremists, that people are now slapping on one another for even relatively benign disagreements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,\u00a0as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. (2 Tim 3:1-4)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is because we fail to\u00a0see the good in one another, [1]<\/sup><\/a>cf. Seeing the Good<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/span>