Is it bad to start one’s day listening to (worshipping to?) a song like Megadeth’s cover of “No More Mr. Nice Guy”?
Is it anti-Catholic? Un-Christian?
Not if you struggle with boundaries.
Not if you struggle with pleasing the World when you should be pleasing God.
Not if you tend to jump when your Idol says “Jump!”, at the expense of your peace, at the expense of those in your care, at the expense of your mission from God.
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
Matthew 11:7
Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Matthew 16:21-23
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
“For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
Matthew 10:34-37
This most recent Lent, I decided to give up toxic people, and I had to wonder, how had I collected so many?
Here’s to getting rid of (or at least, setting new boundaries with) your stumbling blocks–whatever or whomever they might be.
“No more Mr. Nice Girl…”