Some Gospel messages are easy to discern, right? Some Gospel passages give a direct message that we can easily understand and reflect upon in great detail. But today’s Gospel has a challenging, difficult message for us: Love your enemies. Pray for those who abuse you. Do good for those who hate you. Those things are not easy for us to do, are they? And that advice is certainly not the way of the world.
When I was a new priest at St Richard, I started visiting a prisoner at the Hinds County Detention Center. That was my introduction to prison ministry. This young man was awaiting trial for murder in the Belhaven neighborhood in Jackson. The prisoner was from Indiana, so he did not have a lot of family here in Mississippi. I remember getting a phone call from his mom one Sunday morning, telling me that her son was being offered a plea bargain of life imprisonment instead of seeking the death penalty against him. After a week of visits with him, of a lot of intense conversations, he agreed to the plea bargain at the very last minute. I remember accompanying him as he was sentenced in front of the judge. None of his family members were there with him; I was there a couple of parishioners I brought with me from St Richard. The family of the man who was murdered were there too. A large group of his family and friends were present for the sentencing. I had to pass in front of all of them to get into the courtroom. If looks could kill, I would have been dead in that instant. I could feel the anger and hatred they had for the killing of this young man who was their son, their brother, their friend. I am sure they saw the man who murdered their loved one as the enemy. Through the lens of the ways of the world, we can understand their feelings.
It is in this midst of this that we hear Jesus’ command: Love your enemy. It is a command, not a suggestion. It is a very far reaching command that is so tough to live out in our everyday lives. Loving our enemy is not an ideal, but instead a way of life. To be an authentic disciple of Jesus, we must strive to live this commandment, no matter how impossible it may seem.
What do we make of Jesus’ statement that when someone strikes us on the cheek, we are to offer the other cheek as well? I don’t think Jesus is telling us to submit ourselves to violence again and again, but rather I see him telling us that we are not to respond to violence with violence, for that never solves anything.
We know that we are called to love our enemies, but many of us struggle with how we can bring about this spirit of forgiveness in our lives. Forgiveness can be one of the hardest things we do. We might wonder: where do we begin? We are called to begin with Jesus, to turn to Christ crucified, listening to the words he speak from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.” May Christ’s words enter our own hearts and become our own words.
What actions can we take after we forgive? Perhaps a phone call, or letter, or a friendly knock on someone's door will help us express our forgiveness. Just as the sacrament of reconciliation requires the action of penance, the act of forgiveness requires an act, if that is possible.
We live in a very difficult, complicated world and it does not seem like it is getting easier. It takes a person of faith to love our neighbor and to feel hate when someone does us wrong. However, this is what Jesus calls us to do. How can we receive Christ in the Eucharist and believe that he is entering our lives in that special way and then turn around and hate anyone? How can we receive the God of love into our hearts, only to have that heart blocked by resentment and hatred? We are called to kneel down and to ask God for forgiveness for ourselves, but also to kneel down to ask God to help us forgive others. Our Gospel today certainly asks us to examine our hearts and live out this command.
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