Fr. Chris Phillips on "Absolute Hatred"

From The Angl0-Catholic:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” - St. John 15:18

How many times have we read or heard that verse, and thought about how Christ was hated during His lifetime? He was hated so much that those who were driven by it insisted on His crucifixion. But when it comes to that hatred, I tend to think in the past tense. I allow myself to forget that there are still those who loathe Him with an intensity that defies imagination, and their revulsion extends to His Church and to the Pope, who is the earthly head of the Church.

We’re inclined to underestimate the power of hatred, because we’ve sanitized it through an over-use of the word. Children “hate” school and they “hate” broccoli. A lot of people “hate” getting up on Monday mornings. I “hate” polyester vestments and bad music. Now, I suppose we could take the path of some Scripture scholars and say that “hate” really means “to love less,” and that’s how they interpret the words of Jesus when he tells us, “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26). And I’m sure that softer interpretation is correct. It’s how we tend to use the word now. When the child claims to hate school, what he really means is that he’d prefer to stay home and watch cartoons, or play with his friends. When a person says he hates to get up in the morning, he’s really saying that he’d like another hour in bed.

But there is such a thing as a vicious and deep hatred for something or someone – a hatred which is primal and demonic. That’s the kind of hatred which nailed Christ to the cross. It’s a hatred which is traced back to Lucifer himself when he asserted “Non serviam,” and who then went on to plant the same attitude in our first parents, Adam and Eve. And it’s the kind of hatred which we’re seeing in some of the present attacks on the Holy Father.