7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

To All the Parishioners of Epiphany of the Lord
The Culture of Mercy: The Christian Style This command, to respond to insult and wrongdoing with love, has created a new culture in the world: “a culture of mercy” — we need to learn this well!
And properly practice this culture of mercy — which “can set in motion a real cultural revolution”
(Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter Misericordia et Misera, Para. 20).

It is the revolution of love, in which the protagonists are the martyrs of all times.
And Jesus assures us that our behavior, inspired by love for those who do us harm, will not be in vain.
He tells us: “forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you” (vv. 37-38).
This is beautiful. God will give us something beautiful if we are generous, and merciful.
This is the revolution of mercy.
(Pope Francis, Homily, 2019)

Dear parishioners, beginning from the day’s Gospel from Saint Luke (6:27-38), Jesus clarifies the distinctive traits of the Christian Style. Jesus always indicates to us what the Style of the disciple must be. He does so, for example, through the Beatitudes or the Works of Mercy. In a particular way, Jesus focuses on four details for living the Christian Style, namely: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Is it Possible to Love your Enemies and Do Good to Those who Hate You? Jesus made the point that that is precisely what God does. Essentially, God is love. The Scriptures spoke constantly of God’s merciful and faithful love. God can love enemies because God is absolutely free. Jesus personified this freedom. Let us plunge into further reflection on the matter with few points:

Dear friends, firstly, Jesus’ teaching on the matter came from his own inner experience; it reflects his own insight, his own strength, his own peace. His concern is to share that inner experience with those he loved. Jesus’ strength comes from his clear sense of who he is. He knew himself to be loved by God. There were no unrecognized insecurities lurking in his psyche leading him to project his own unowned weaknesses onto others. Perhaps one of the most beautiful experiences of “the Lord’s year of favor” is precisely the God-given freedom, the ability and the desire to love everyone, even enemies. In fact, true love is totally unconditional. Until it is unconditional, it is incomplete.

When persons have matured enough to see the heart of the other, to stand in the shoes of the other and to have some sense of “where the other is coming from”, they can then move beyond seeing the other as someone to be hated. The capacity to love enemies is not achieved simply by wishing it or by feeling obliged to do so. It is a factor of maturity and is clearly connected to clear self-knowledge, self-acceptance and the capacity to empathize. It originates from a strong sense of God’s love. Let us all experience God’s love.

Secondly, Jesus warns against Judging. It is interpreting the mission beginning with Self. In the context, the judging that Jesus referred to is not the automatic assessment of the rightness or wrongness of other people’s external activities from the standpoint of one’s own values. The only way to avoid that reaction is to have no values. The judging that Jesus counselled against is the tendency to judge people’s minds, hearts and motivations. People’s inner worlds are beyond the judgment of others.

Jesus’ use of the passive voice – so that you may not be judged – was a respectful way in the culture to say God will not judge. Care is needed in interpreting Jesus’ injunction. If people condemn others, will God condemn them? Jesus seems to suppose that God would do the very thing that human persons are warned against. God’s forgiveness would be conditional upon people’s own openness to forgive-which was effectively saying that God’s forgiveness was provisional. Let us make an effort to live this aspect of our spiritual lives.

The decision to condemn and the choice not to forgive, are themselves indications of inability, spiritual immaturity and lack of freedom. Forgiveness is possibly beyond the capacity of unredeemed humanity. Personally, deepening and integrating God’s forgiveness, allowing the work of redemption to operate within, may be the only way people can begin to forgive others. Their own ability and readiness to forgive become expression and proof of the prior forgiveness of God, which is in no way conditional, but is always free gift, part of the experience of the Lord’s year of favor. Let us enrich ourselves with this quality of life.

Thirdly, Jesus warns against projecting Evil. Jesus moves on to address specifically the leaders, the teachers, in the Christian community. They above all are to personalize the truth of the mercy of God and to exemplify the God-given capacity to love and to forgive. Their effectiveness in teaching would be a factor of their own conversion and growth. The fully qualified disciple would be the disciple who could see – like Jesus, the teacher. Jesus moved closer to the very core of Christian conversion: the self- knowledge revealing the sinfulness rooted in every human heart, and the tragic solidarity of all humankind in sin. Such radical sinfulness, basically invisible to the unaided human eye, can only be seen and owned in the light of God’s faithful mercy and unconditional love. For the Love of God is so wide and deep.

Though Jesus speaks in terms of good tree/bad tree, good person/evil person, the reality is that every human person is a work in progress; true conversion is a gradual process. At any one time on the journey to wholeness, the human heart is a mixture of good and evil; it is both redeemed and unredeemed.

Dear parishioners, in the mind of Jesus there is no substitute for self- knowledge and true inner conversion. The key factor was the heart, the largely unexplored depths of the human spirit. External behavior, while often the expression of the heart, is always secondary to the heart’s own orientation: its basic option for good or for evil, for God or for self. Jesus is not interested in enthusiasm but in commitment, not in words but in deeds.

But where would the ordinary hearer find the strength to succeed in responding to life in the same ways that Jesus did? Jesus’ freedom came from his familiarity with the God whom he knew loved him. It was the fruit of his inner journey, the consequence of his prayer. All those who would desire the same clarity and freedom would need to follow the same path of personal knowledge and discovery, the same easy familiarity with God. Time spent seeking God would be the key to the inner freedom empowering genuine and spontaneous love for others, even for enemies. Let us put into action this attitude.

Dear Epiphany, let us embrace the paradox of the Gospel: in our weakness, we find strength; in our poverty, we find true riches; in our hunger, we discover the Bread of Life. Let us live not for fleeting comforts but for the eternal joy that comes from following Christ, who blesses the brokenhearted and warns the self-satisfied. Let us be generous in heart and mind to others.

Gods plan for each one of us is marvelous. It exceeds our comprehension to hear Jesus tell us to be perfect, not according to a standard of human perfection, but according to divine perfection. Our vocation is to become like God – for his divine life to increase in us and for our narrow standards to diminish and disappear. We would not strive for such a high goal, if we were not commanded by our Lord. We must trust that he can do it in me. What we have to do is to collaborate with him, seeking him in prayer and discerning his will for us always.

May God bless each and every one at Epiphany of the Lord!

Fraternally,
Fr. John Peter Lazaar SAC; Pastor