Gal 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
enmity, from echthra (from the word echthros): hated, odious, hateful, hostile, hating, and opposing another
strife, from eris: contention, strife, wrangling
jealousy, zelos: an envious and contentious rivalry, jealousy
anger, from thumos: passion, angry, heat, anger forthwith boiling up and soon subsiding again
selfishness, from eritheia: partisanship, fractiousness
dissension, from dichostasia: dissension, division
party spirit, from hairesis: dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims
envy, from phthonos: envy (from phtheiro, to corrupt, to destroy)
It sounds just like some of the folks around here. If the shoe fits...
What is going on lately? This morning at our church some lady came in and started yelling something during the readings, trying to disrupt mass.
I think its often best to remember the words of +Paul and the advice our Father in The Faith +John Chrysostomos has given us.
"By "Contentions," he means, with heretics, in which he would not have us labor to no purpose, where nothing is to be gained, for they end in nothing. For when a man is perverted and predetermined not to change his mind, whatever may happen, why shouldest thou labor in vain, sowing upon a rock, when thou shouldest spend thy honorable toil upon thy own people, in discoursing with them upon almsgiving and every other virtue?
How then does he elsewhere say, "If God peradventure will give them repentance" (2 Tim. ii.25); but here, "A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself"? In the former passage he speaks of the correction of those of whom he had hope, and who had simply made opposition. But when he is known and manifest to all, why dost thou contend in vain? why dost thou beat the air? What means, "being condemned of himself"? Because he cannot say that no one has told him, no one admonished him; since therefore after admonition he continues the same, he is self-condemned." +John Chrysostomos Homily VI on Titus
Does this mean that we shouldn't witness to The Faith? Of course not. Does it mean that we cannot learn from the heterodox, even from true heretics? Of course not! We need to know what they think about who we are and what we believe. And I think we can get pretty contentious among ourselves without a problem. There is certainly a long tradition of that at least in the East. But it does mean that contention with the heterodox to no purpose is destructive.
Remember that our Faith is The Faith upon which the Universe was created!