Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time.
Our reading today is taken from the holy gospel according to Matthew.
Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
The gospel of the Lord.
Homily
“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." Did Jesus really say those words ... to me? My heart cries out: “I can’t; I’m not Jesus Christ.” And my heart is right, if I expect to try to be perfect in spite of my own human weakness and limitations. But Jesus is asking me and you to open our hearts to him and allow the power and grace of his Spirit to shore up our human weakness and limitations.
That is the only way we can fulfill Jesus’ great commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What does it mean to love God with every fiber of our being? It means to orient our lives, not according to our personal needs, but according to God’s love and mercy. It means treating every person we meet with dignity and respect. Jesus explains this love of God for everyone with an image: “he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” God’s perfection is in treating everyone equally, without our human distinctions.
We have a hard time doing that even with people we have just met and especially with people with whom we may have had difficulty. But Jesus does not let up on his demands and tells his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.”
Here is where some people just give up. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me: Father, I cannot forgive, I cannot love my enemies; I am not Jesus Christ. And yet, we are like Jesus Christ; he calls us children of our heavenly Father, and children learn to be like their parents.
We look to God in all our needs, because God is almighty, and Jesus is our savior. We confidently ask for so many blessings for ourselves, our families and our friends. We also need to ask God for the difficult graces, to forgive, to love the unloving, to enter more deeply into the spirit and life of Jesus.
There are times I manage to summon the courage to make this prayer, but always with trepidation. I know that to share in the glory of Jesus’ resurrection, I have to first share in his passion. There is a cost we must pay when we truly try follow Jesus. That cost is our very selves. Loving those who love us and being on good terms with those who agree with us is easy, Jesus tells us. Pagans and sinners can do that. But to love one’s enemies and pray for one’s persecutors, that is a special grace that Jesus freely bestows on those who truly ask to follow him.
Humanly speaking, this should be impossible, but Jesus reveals God’s love for us and makes us children of God in the Spirit, so we can love God above all things and our neighbor as our self – even our enemies.
May God bless you.
Rev. Karl E. Esker CSsR
Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help
Brooklyn, NY
POWERED BY BLUBRRY
