Nice is Not a virtue

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were

born I consecrated you. These words from today’s first reading were spoken

by God to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah (like all the prophets) was chosen

by God for a specific mission. He had to proclaim the truths of God to a

people who were hardened of heart: a people who had often abandoned the

faith of their forefathers and had chosen to follow instead the ways of the

culture around them. The prophet Jeremiah was therefore charged with a

very difficult mission: bringing back the Israelites to God and to a way of

living that glorifies God.

The Lord wished to strengthen Jeremiah in this calling; He wished to

let Jeremiah know that he was chosen, that he was known by the Lord even

before he was formed in his mother’s womb. From the very beginning, God

desired to consecrate him for a special mission.

The mission of the prophets was not easy. It was a mission of

preaching the Truth — and very often to a people who did not want to hear it.

The temptation for the prophets was to adapt that Truth to the mentality of

the people. But in adapting it, they would not really be proclaiming it in all its

fullness.

We all have experienced similar situations in our own lives. We are all

called by Christ to be prophets: the prophetic dimension of our Christian life

is very important, especially in today’s world. If you have ever encountered

someone who is living in a way that displeases God (who is living a lifestyle

that dishonours the Lord, and that degrades our human dignity), and if you

have tried to speak to that person about it, it is very likely that you have not

been well-received. Don’t judge me! people often say, whenever we tell them

something that they do not want to hear. In today’s society, many people

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play the victim card whenever they are challenged in regard to their way of

thinking or living. They are quick to point themselves out as being victims of

a judgemental mentality, of hate speech, of lack of respect for their

“diversity” of lifestyle.

In today’s world, it is perhaps even harder to be a prophet than in the

time of Jesus. Truth has become so relativised that it has often been said

that the modern world only has one sin: the sin of speaking the truth.

Everything is considered to be relative, and the relativity of all things is

presented to us as an absolute truth. You have your truth, and I have mine,

we are told, and that’s the absolute truth, whether you like it or not. People

don’t realise the irony of what they are saying.

God is revealed to us in the Scriptures and in the Tradition of the

Church as being the thrice-Holy One. At Mass, before the Eucharistic Prayer,

we sing or cry out with jubilant voices: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus! Holy,

Holy, Holy! Holiness is the essential quality of God. But today, even within

the Church, there are many who do not understand this. It has been said

that today’s Church is not one that centres on holiness but rather on

niceness. Be nice! we are told, and so the Church since the 1960s has been

dubbed by some as the Church of Nice — an expression which, I am sure,

many of you have heard.

What exactly is meant by “being nice”? To be nice means to tell people

what they want to hear, to never challenge their ideas or their actions, to

never call into doubt the lifestyles that they choose — even the ones that are

sinful. To be nice means to make people feel good, and “feeling good” is (to

many) the be-all and end-all of our existence.

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But God is not nice — at least not in this sense. God does not just tell

us what we want to hear. God does not fail to challenge us, to call us to

repentance and conversion, and even to warn us of the dire consequences

that would ensue should we choose not to repent. The prophets in the OT

were not “nice.” They were sometimes even harsh and very direct: Turn

away from sin, lest the Lord your God turn Himself away from you! Not a

very nice thing to say. Saint Paul too was not always “nice” in his letters. He

was very direct and truthful, and certainly didn’t water things down to suit

peoples’ tastes. His primary concern was not to never say anything that

could hurt people’s feelings; his primary concern was to preach the truth, in

season and out of season.

But most of all, we have the example of Our Lord Himself. Was Jesus

being “nice” when He chased the money-changers out of the Temple with a

whip of chords? Was He being “nice” when he referred to the Pharisees as

“white-washed tombs” and “a generation of vipers” who are trying to flee the

wrath of God? Jesus was not “nice”: but He was HOLY. We don’t sing Nice,

Nice, Nice, is the Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are filled with His

niceness! but rather Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and

earth are filled with His glory. God’s glory is linked not to niceness but to

holiness.

In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (today’s second reading), St.

Paul tells us that Love rejoices in the Truth. Love requires or demands Truth.

Thus to not tell someone something because it might hurt their feelings is

not an act of Christian Charity. If we don’t help those who are on the wrong

path (on the path that leads away from God), can we say that we truly love

them? Love sometimes requires us to correct others — I gave you just a few

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examples from the prophets, from St. Paul, and ultimately from the example

of Jesus Himself.

Let us pray therefore for the grace of always speaking the Truth,

whether or not others want to hear it: of course, speaking it always with

Christian Charity. Charity and Truth go hand-in-hand. The great Archbishop

Fulton Sheen said to his Priests, “If you want your people to be content and

remain where they are, then tell them what they want to hear; but if you want

your people to grow in holiness and become Saints, then tell them what they

need to hear. What we need to hear is not always what we want to hear. And

if we do that, yes, people will accuse us of “not being nice.” But niceness is

not a virtue. Jesus never said, “Blessed are the nice.” Holiness is the

ultimate virtue, and it is linked to Truth and Charity.

I’d like to share with you, dear brothers and sisters, a beautiful quote

from Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical lettter Caritas in Veritate (Charity in

Truth). This is what he says,

Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and

especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the

authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is

an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous

engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God,

who is Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence

to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and

through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:32). To defend the truth,

to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are

therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in

the truth” (1 Cor 13:6).

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Jesus was rejected because He proclaimed the truth. Those who did

not want to listen to the truth did not want to listen to Him. Today, the Church

has the role that Christ had in His times. The Church’s voice is like that of

the Lord Himself. She has an obligation to preach not only those things that

are consoling and easy to hear, but also the full message of the Gospel,

which is often very challenging because it requires a death to self. The

Church is called not to compromise the Gospel, and certainly not to water it

down to suit today’s modern tastes, but rather to preach the truth in all its

fullness: boldly, but also with great Charity.

When you love someone, you want what is best for that person.

Ultimately, what the Church wants for every human being is their salvation.

And that is why the Church preaches the Gospel, in season and out of

season (as St. Paul says), as did the prophets of old, including Jeremiah.

Many of the prophets trembled when they had to preach hard truths to their

people: especially when they had to correct the people because they were

living in a way that did not give glory to God. But eventually, they all put their

trust in God and in the power of His Truth, and they preached what the

people needed to hear.

May God grant to His Church and to each of us the grace to remain

faithful to the fullness of the Gospel to the very end. In the words of Christ

Himself, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.”

May God bless you all.

Anonymous