Good News Reflection
Thursday of the 23rd Week of Ordinary Time
September 9, 2010
Today's Saint: Peter Claver
Pray for African-Americans:
http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/index.html?PeterClaver.htm
Today's Readings:
1 Cor 8:1b-7,11-13
Ps 139:1b-3,13-14ab,23-24
Luke 6:27-38
http://www.usccb.org/nab/090910.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_09_09.mp3
The joy of loving your enemies
Who has cursed you? Bless them! Who has mistreated you? Pray for them! Who has taken something from you unfairly? Give them more! Who has been an enemy to you? Love them the way they should be loving you but are not.
Ouch, I do NOT enjoy living like that. But who says we're supposed to enjoy everything we do? Jesus certainly did not enjoy his cross. The way of the cross is what separates the holy from the earthly. As Jesus says in today's Gospel reading, "If you love those who love you, big deal! Even sinners do that." We are different precisely because we treat others they way WE WANT to be treated (i.e., the healthy way, the compassionate way, the Christ-like way), not the way they actually treat us.
Jesus spelled out very clearly that to be children of the Most High God, we have to be kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, just like our Divine Daddy. We have to be merciful, just like our Father in whose image we were created.
Enjoying what we do is not always possible, but joy is. Christian joy (Christ's joy) comes from a life that is full of love. No, not full of love from others. Full of love, period. We will never be loved enough by others. But we can be full of love – the choice is ours. By giving love, we immerse ourselves fully into Christ's love. What we give is what we receive, for God is love, and when we give love even to those who don't deserve it, we receive God, who is the only source of real love and real joy!
Jesus said that what we measure out is the same measure by which we receive. If we measure out only small doses of love (little acts of kindness, conditional forgiveness, leftover portions of our money and possessions, etc.), we have so little connection to God that we're not receiving all that he can give. But if we're generous, if the measuring cup seems bottomless, it's because we're full of God. His mercy, his forgiveness, his love, his gifts, his help, his everything is given to us in good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing into the lives of others.
No matter what others do to us, God is good to us. When they curse us and we bless them, God blesses us, and since what he blesses becomes holy, we become – wow! – holy saints. When they mistreat us and we pray for them, Jesus prays for us – for our needs and for our healing – and the Father will never say no to his Son. When they take from us unfairly and we give them more than what they're demanding, God gives us more than what we need.
That's how much God loves us! Oh what joy!
© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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