Love Your Enemies

                                              7th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Today's gospel continues St. Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount which we began last week. Here we encounter Jesus's famous command to "love your enemies." Perhaps this is the reason the Church gives us the story of David and King Saul in today's first reading.

The movies have distorted our vision of Bible history. In most Hollywood biblical epics the characters all look so noble. They wear flowing robes or tunics, live in gorgeous palaces, and speak with beautiful English accents. For today's episode, set as it is in the desert of Ziph, it would be better if we tried to imagine ourselves in an American western or in one of the Italian Spaghetti westerns. 

King Saul, the King or Chief of the Israeli tribe, has led his warriors out into the desert in pursuit of the upstart warrior, David. The old king is envious of David's victories in battle and his growing popularity within the tribe, and he has set out to capture and kill him. After Saul and his men pitch camp for the night, David and his right hand man, Abishai, evade the sentries and enter the Israeli camp.

The two find Saul sleeping and Abishai urges David to take advantage of the opportunity, "Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear..." Now all you have to do is glance through the rest of the Book of Samuel to see that David is no pacifist. He is a warrior who never shrinks from killing. Yet in this case he draws back--"for who can lay hands on the Lord's anointed and remain unpunished." Anointing with holy oils was the sign that the King had been chosen by God, that the King was in fact God's representative on earth. David seems motivated here more by fear of the Lord than by love of his enemy. 

Let's turn now to the gospel passage where Jesus is seemingly once again being so impractical. How unnatural He sounds. Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, give your tunic as well as your cloak, do not demand repayment, lend money without expecting repayment. But is it so impractical? Let's look at some examples from our own daily life especially since we are about to enter the season of Lent. Maybe the Sermon on the Mount contains some things that we can do right now. 

First, what about love our enemies? Now we don't have to look to Russia or China to find enemies. Our enemies are right here in our midst. Children, how many times have you fought with your own brother or sister in the last week? How many fights have you had about who sits where in the family car? It's good to give up candy for Lent but it would be even better to give up selfishness and share with your brothers and sisters.

As we get older this advice is even more important. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. In fact what family could function well unless if follows this advice. Husbands and wives who hold anything back in their relationship are doomed to failure. Is this the reason why so many marriages fail today? For Lent let's resolve to intensify our love. Let's bring the spirit of St. Valentine's day into Lent.

In athletics how often do we read of selfish stars who refuse to help their less talented teammates. This selfishness starts even in little league. When I was a softball coach I learned that sooner or later the ball would be hit to the worst fielder on the team and usually at a crucial time. The teammate that we fail to help could cost us a championship. Really, isn't our Lord saying that hatred and anger hurt us more than the people we hate. I knew a man who never forgave his sister for failing to pay back a small debt. Who was hurt? What good did his grudge do for him? How many of us have not spoken with our own brothers and sisters for years over some trivial slight? The best thing that we could do this Lenten season would be to get on the phone and just say hello.

Our Lord promises us that if we act miserably, we will be miserable. If we act generously, we will become generous. He has said that His yoke is easy and His burden light. Look how he let's us off the hook and opens up the way to happiness: Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. He isn't naive or impractical. He knew that workers were paid in those days by filling their aprons with grain. Bosses liked to get away with filling the aprons loosely because packing it down and shaking the air out would benefit the workers.

As St. Paul says in the second reading, we all bear the image of the earthly Adam, but our Lord Himself is the heavenly Adam and if we choose, we shall also bear His image. Let's make sure that this Lent we do not take the spear and nail the Lord's Anointed One to the Cross.

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Reading 1. 1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23

 Reading II. I Corinthians 15: 45-49

 Gospel. Luke 6: 27-38 (Love your enemies)

Beatitudes: the Road to Happiness

                       6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the problems that the Church faces today is that we have lost the meaning of words, which were once perfectly clear. For example, I think that "salvation" is one of these words. I would bet that most people don't think of salvation as a goal. However, if we were to discover that salvation means "happiness," then it's a different story. Who wouldn't want to be happy, especially if the happiness was forever or eternal?

 

How many best sellers today deal with the search for happiness? How many TV programs are devoted to the same subject? Yet today, despite our advanced technology, our great wealth, and our educational achievements, there is still so much unhappiness in our world. 

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Happiness is the subject of today's readings from Scripture. It has been said that there are three steps on the stairway to happiness. First, we have to recognize that we can't achieve it on our own. We are finite or imperfect. We just are not equipped with the ability or the tools to do it on our own. In today’s first reading the prophet Zephaniah proclaims that the road to happiness is not the one we would think to take. He indicates that those who seek riches, power, and fame will not be happy.

 

            Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth,

            Who have observed his law;

            Seek justice, seek humility,…

 

In other words, when we seek happiness through money or power or fame or sex or recognition we are bound to fail. Just read the newspapers every day. I knew someone who hated her job so much that it was literally making her physically and psychologically ill. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to leave it because even though she was financially secure, she thought she needed even more money. She was so unhappy!

 

In last week’s gospel St, Matthew gave his account of the calling of the first disciples. Even though the Evangelist named only Peter, Andrew, James and John, we must understand that we have also been called to be disciples. What does that mean? What does it involve? In all the gospel readings from now to Lent, we are going to get the answer to those questions.

 

In the gospel today Matthew brings us the famous Sermon on the Mount. Right before today's reading our Lord had gone up to a mountain to pray. Afterwards he had called his disciples to him. That's where we begin today. Jesus had already gained a reputation as a healer but now he begins to teach.  

 

He preaches the "Beatitudes."  Beatitude, blessed, bliss: all mean happiness. The second step to happiness is to be open to the truth when we hear it. Whenever Jesus speaks to his disciples, we can be sure that He is speaking to us. 

 

            Blessed (or Happy) are the poor in spirit…

            Blessed (or Happy) are they who mourn…

            Blessed (or Happy) are the meek…

            Blessed (or Happy) are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…

            Blessed (or Happy) are the merciful…

            Blessed (or Happy) are the clean of heart…

            Blessed (or Happy) are the peacemakers… 

            Blessed (or Happy) are they who are persecuted…

            Blessed (or Happy) are you when they insult you…

 

Scholars tell us that poor in spirit does not mean gloomy. It refers to those conscious of their need of God’s help in striking contrast to the proud who are supremely confident of their own ability. The greatest of all virtues, Humility, is here contrasted with Pride, the greatest of all vices. The rest of the beatitudes deal with the same idea. The proud, the arrogant, the self-righteous, the impure, the warlike, the persecutors will not find happiness. 

 

The road to happiness is not the popular road. Once we're open to the Truth we can then take the third step and apply it in our own lives. The man who marries must give up his own ambitions and dreams, his own life, for his wife: and she must do so also. Parents give up their lives for their children. Who ever said that would be easy? Priests and religious give up their lives in the service of others. St. Paul says that single people even have a greater responsibility or opportunity for self-sacrificing love.

 

So, the road to happiness is open to ordinary people who just lead ordinary lives. In today’s second reading from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he makes the same point.

 

“Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters,

Not many of you were wise by human standards,

Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.”

 

“Rather God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,

And God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,

And God chose the lowly and despised of the world,…

To reduce to nothing those who are something…”

 

At the very outset of his public life Jesus began to teach and his teaching was all about humility. It’s not that we need to grovel in the dirt, we just have to understand who we are to achieve happiness.

 

 

“Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

 

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Fishers of Men

                      5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                      C cycle

 

 

Today might very well be called Vocation Sunday. The word vocation comes from the Latin word "vocare" which means to call. In each of the readings today, someone is called and in each case it is someone who feels unworthy or unable.*

 

In the first reading Isaiah has a vision of the heavenly Throne surrounded by angels and he is filled with fear.  Isaiah says,

 

       Woe is me, I am doomed!

       For I am a man of unclean lips,

       living among a people of unclean lips....

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Then one of the angels--and angels are always sent by God--around the throne flies to him and touches his mouth with a flaming ember and heals him. "See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged." Then Isaiah hears the Lord asking, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" and answers the call, "Here I am,...send me!"

 

In today's gospel from Luke, chapter 5, we hear the story of the calling of the first Apostles, in particular, Peter. Now in the previous chapter Luke recounted that Jesus had already worked his healing powers on many people in Galilee. It was this reason that led the people to crowd around him at the lakeside. One of his cures had been Peter's own mother-in-law and so it's no wonder that Peter allowed our Lord to use his boat and followed his directions. 

 

I love St. Peter. He is always impetuous, headstrong, and without guile. He is the prototype of all the great comic sidekicks in literature, from Don Quixote's Sancho Panza to Luke Skywalker's robots. "No, master," they always say, "we can't go there, we can't do that." In this case Peter thinks that the Lord is being a little impractical when He asks him to put out into the deep and lower his nets. "Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,..."

 

Peter's astonishment at the incredible catch of fish reminds us of the fear that Isaiah felt. He falls at the knees of Jesus and says, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man." Jesus answers with the famous call, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." I must confess that in this instance I prefer the old translation, where these fishermen are called to be "Fishers of Men."

 

Whatever the translation, they still responded to the call--"they left everything and followed Him."

 

Finally, in the second reading St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of his own calling. Recalling all those who had seen Christ after His Resurrection, he says.

 

       Last of all...he appeared to me.

       For I am the least of the apostles,

       not fit to be called an apostle,

       because I persecuted the church of God.

 

Isaiah, Peter, Paul, they all recognized their unworthiness or weakness, but all came to realize that God's grace would give them the strength. As Paul said, "I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective.”

 

We would make a mistake if we believed that vocations are only for priests and religious. Peter, James, and John were fisherman. Paul although extremely well educated was a tentmaker by trade. Today's readings are for all of us. We all have our vocation or calling in life. 

 

Another mistake would be to think that we're not ready or prepared. Who would ever enter into one of life's great callings if they had the slightest idea of the trials and tribulations that they would encounter on life's journey? Peter and Paul did not go through a long period of training or study before they were called. That would come afterwards. When our Lord appeared to them they recognized that they were not ready but they couldn't resist Him. 

 

Finally, another mistake would be to look inside of us for the call. Today's readings tell us that the call will usually come from outside. Our Lord appears to Peter at the side of the lake and to Paul on the road to Damascus.  We should not expect to hear some kind of inner voice. In another place in the gospels our Lord tells us that when we did the least thing for one of our brothers, we did it for Him. In the same way when we hear someone asking us to do something or to undertake some task, we might consider that the Lord is speaking through them.

 

I'll never forget my dear aunt Nan. She had no children of her own but when my mother died when I was only 11 she stepped up and became a virtual mother to myself and my two younger brothers. Didn't the Lord speak to her through her widowed brother and three young nephews. Like Isaiah she responded, "Here I am."

 

If today you hear His Voice, harden not your hearts.

 

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*Today's image is Caravaggio's famous version of the calling of Matthew. Click on image to enlarge.

Reading 1. Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8.

Reading II. I Corinthians 15: 1-11

Gospel. Luke 5: 1-11 (Fishers of Men). 

Love Walked In *

                   4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                  C cycle

 

 

Today's first reading is from the beginning of the book of the Prophet Jeremiah. It is Jeremiah's call to be a prophet:

 

      But do you gird your loins;

      stand up and tell them

      all that I command you.

 

Jeremiah is going to be a prophet not in the sense that he is going to foretell the future but in the sense that he is going to remind the people of their past and their covenant with God, and bring them back into a true relationship with their God. How often have they forgotten that they are a chosen people, a people with a mission to bring all the nations to God. Jeremiah is warned that it will not be an easy task. His own people, Judah's kings and princes, priests and people, will fight against him.

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This reading sets the scene for the continuation of Luke's gospel account of the return of Jesus to the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth which we began last week. The first verse of today's gospel reading actually repeats the ending of last week's reading. Remember, Jesus had read a passage from Isaiah about the Lord's anointed or chosen one and then said, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

 

Today's reading gives us the peoples' reaction. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, urged his followers to try to visualize the scenes of the gospel, even see them in their minds as if they were part of the scene itself. Let's put ourselves in this scene. We're in the church, we're impressed with the eloquent words of Jesus but then we remember that He is only  one of us. "Isn't this the son of Joseph?"  Maybe we're thinking, "Wait a minute, who does this guy think he is?"

 

Jesus hears and says, "no prophet is accepted in his own native place." More than that, he tells us that in the past other prophets had been rejected by us, and could only do their healing among foreigners, even enemies. "There were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." Israel, Syria, the names are still with us today in the most strife torn region of the world. Naaman himself was a Syrian warlord. 

 

OK, we're still in the scene and we can imagine our reaction. "When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury." We surge along with the crowd as we drive Him to the outskirts of the little hill town to throw Him over a cliff. However, He passes through our midst and goes away, leaving His home town of Nazareth behind.

 

St. Paul himself was no stranger to angry mobs. Before his conversion he had participated in the stoning of St. Stephen, the first martyr. He was on the road to Damascus to persecute the Christians there when he encountered the risen Christ and received his own call to prophesy--to bring the gospel to all nations. In today's second reading we find that he is finding it no easier than Jeremiah. 

 

He had established a Christian community in the leading Greek city of Corinth but after leaving them to continue on his missionary journeys, he has heard that they have begun to bicker among themselves. In the last two weeks we got a sense of what they were arguing about. Some felt that they were better than others--that they had received greater spiritual gifts. Christians of Jewish or Greek ancestry could not put away their traditional hostility to each other. So Paul has had to remind them that all our gifts or abilities come from Christ, that we all are part of His Mystical Body, and that we all have a role to play in the mission of Christ.

 

Even today there are many who don't like Paul especially when he tells women to be silent in Church or reminds them to be subservient to their husbands. We'll have to talk about those remarks some other day but for now it is enough to say that the same Paul wrote in today's reading the most beautiful and eloquent words that have ever been written on the subject of Love. *

 

We're in the season of love, the time of the year when we celebrate St. Valentine's day.  We know that our culture today has cheapened and debased the gift of love. We only have to watch TV to see that our culture is seeking after the lesser gifts. Paul tells us to "strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts." He boils them down to three:

 

      So faith, hope, love remain, these three;

      but the greatest of these is love."

 

What is love?

 

      Love is patient, love is kind.

      It is not jealous, it is not pompous,

      it is not inflated, it is not rude,

      it does not seek its own interests,

      it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,

      it does not rejoice over wrongdoing

      but rejoices with the truth.

      It bears all things, believes all things,

      hopes all things, endures all things.

 

Let's hope that we don't share the fate of the crowd at Nazareth when Love "passed through the midst of them and went away."

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*Note: The readings today always remind me of the great Gershwin song, "Love Walked In." Here is a link to a version by Chris Conner, or view the short video below.

Reading 1. Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19

Reading II. I Corinthians 12: 31--13:13

Gospel. Luke 4: 21-30  (the son of Joseph?)