“Two-faced” has always indicated deceit and untruthfulness. A false front. A person that is dishonest and not to be trusted. Of course, we all have two faces. The one that is really us, our thoughts, biases, and unexpressed opinions. Then there is the one that others see. The mask. The public face that we put on for the outside world.
That isn’t all bad of course. Sometimes that false face is to save someone’s feelings. Your friend gets a new hairdo. She asks how you like it. Do you really tell her that it makes her face look square? No, you ask very nicely where she had it done, while mentally promising yourself to never go to that beauty parlor. Your cousin asks to play a round of golf with you. He shows up on the first tee looking like he just mugged a clown and stole his costume. Do you say that? Certainly not, you ask him if he plays golf very often or does he belong to a golf club.
Sometimes that false face is to avoid confrontation. A guy insults you. While you want to verbally or physically clean his clock, you smile, nod, and mumble an apology.
Unfortunately, that false front sometimes hides a face that is full of rage, hate, jealousy, pent-up venom. That hidden face bubbles and boils like a cauldron in Hell until it bubbles over. That volcanic eruption can come out in road rage, a verbal attack on someone, school bullying, or even physical violence. The result can often embroil and injure innocent people, never intended to be victims or the expressed hate.
We see these extreme examples in school shootings, attacks at workplaces, and even within family units. I find it interesting that over 2/3 of the adults in America claim to be Christians, and yet some percentage of them harbor these destructive thoughts. I wonder how one goes to communion, which is a holy sacrament in any Christian church, with all those evil thoughts in their hearts. Does one mentally lay all that evil down on the pew, partake of communion, and then take up the bundle of hate again? Just how does that work?
I really don’t have any answers, all I have are a lot of questions. When you, or a loved one, becomes the victim of such a sick person the best you can do is to put it aside. Lashing out to get even, or harboring resentment, serves no purpose and simply poisons your own soul. You become as guilty as the other person. I have found that rolling around in a gutter with an antagonist simply serves to get one very dirty.
Len, I offer my opinion on your article that I am familiar with and when you touched on those who partake of the Sacrament of the Eucharist having such things that you listed on their heart, they do not go un-noticed by our creator as He knows the state of every heart and soul. I have a similar situation that while in Mass I have wondered the same thing, and then I hear His voice that says: concentrate on Me and pray for those that no not what they do.