Postmortem 26

Dichosos los perseguidos por causa de la justicia, porque el reino de los cielos les pertenece.

Dichosos serán ustedes cuando por mi causa la gente les insulte, les persiga, y levante en contra ustedes toda clase de calumnias.  Alégrense, y llénense de júbilo porque les espera una gran recompensa en el cielo.  Así también persiguieron a los profetas que les precedieron a ustedes.

These are the hardest words of the Beatitudes, but perhaps you would like to see them in English, Gentle Reader:

Blessed are the persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed will you be when for my sake the people insult you, persecute you, and cause all kinds of trouble for you.  Rejoice and be full of gladness because a great reward in heaven is awaiting you.  So also were the prophets who went before you persecuted.

This is the final outcome from being poor in spirit.  It completes the cycle.  The same reward, none less than the kingdom of heaven.

I am currently experiencing persecution by the Anglican archdiocese.  They have sicced their lawyer on me and I have been told to stop publishing unkind words about them in my blog.  I have responded that if they try to sue me, then I will go public, literally, and then we will see what happens when everyone hears about a wealthy Christian denomination suing a low income blogger.

But I am truly done with those people, and I am treating this as a kind of excommunication from the Anglican Church.  It wasn't so much that I was harassing them, and I certainly wasn't making threats, though they will pull anything out of context in order to make themselves appear to be in the right.  and having the financial resources to hire lawyers of course is going to put me at a disadvantage.

But, really, I kept pestering them with this blog series because I was not offered any satisfactory pastoral support.  And instead of responding to my concerns, I was simply ignored and stonewalled.  I was also given the feeble excuse that I was already in contact with two of the church wardens so why should I need support from clergy.  But these two wardens are personal friends of mine, and I have been in contact with them as friends, not as pastors, but no one has done or said anything to clarify any of this for me.

So, what I have concluded is this.  They are insulted and scandalized and offended by the words I have written about the call of Jesus to real discipleship, as I have recently experienced in Colombia and back here now in Canada.  They do not want to be challenged to give up their privilege or their comfort in order to become true people of the Gospel and the charge of harassment and defamation is nothing more than a convenient smokescreen that they want to use to silence me.  But I will not shut up.

This assures me that I am on the right path with this.  It seems now that my troubled history with the Anglican Church has come to an end.  There is nothing here to mourn.   It is time to move forward.

I am also forwarding this blog post to CBC Go Public, for their reference, just in case the archdiocese tries to get particularly ugly with me.