Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke Glory to you, O Lord Jesus said to his disciples, to you who hear, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well. And from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
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.
For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners and get back the same amount.
Rather, love your enemies and do good to them and lend, expecting nothing back. Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Heavenly Father is merciful. 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. For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Every time I proclaim this gospel and preach on it, I'm reminded of a story that goes back many years.
I go back many years.
Someone once said that all stories are true and some are even based on fact.
This is a true story. It's about a priest friend of mine and a young man who is becoming Catholic. Father Jim Heller was the priest and the young man's wife and children were attending church and he wanted to become a Catholic. This was before RCIA and ocia, where when someone wanted to join the church, the pastor or associate pastor would sit down with them on a weekly basis and give instructions. So this was a one on one instruction going on during the time that Jim was instructing this man.
His name was Mark. He Was a big guy, kind of rough around the edges. You wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley.
He worked at one of the foundries in Saginaw. And one day he was at work and during his lunch hour, he was reading the Bible.
And this guy came up to him. Young man came up to him and he slapped him on the cheek. And he says, I hear it says in that book that you're supposed to turn the other cheek.
Mark grabbed him by the shirt, pinned him up against the wall, and put his cigarette out on his forehead.
He said, I ain't read that far yet.
True story.
The bottom line is we have read that far.
We just heard it.
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, turn the other cheek. And a number of other things. We just heard Jesus. Was he serious or was he exaggerating? Just making a point. And we could pick and choose which ones we wanted to follow.
He is serious.
The normal response in most of us is to strike back, to get even. And the popular opinion might be, do unto others before they do unto you.
And so Jesus is speaking to his disciples, to us, and he is serious. He expects us to take a step beyond reaction, beyond our desire to get back.
He wants his way of life, which is nonviolence, to be our way of life.
We know very well that violence begets violence.
When someone commits an act of evil or hate, it sometimes is repaid with evil and hate. And so it goes on and on and on.
Knowing that doesn't make it not easy to strike back.
But as Jesus teaches, when we do not return evil for evil, we bring violence to an end. Somehow absorbing that impact, evil can stop.
It might be a simple thing, it might be more profound.
But when we don't repay, when we don't react, we can put an end to it. History and circumstances in our lives say that that is not easy.
We try.
Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail.
So what we need to do is try again and again and again, loving one's enemies and doing good to those who hate us. Turning the other cheek is not about condoning abusive behavior, behavior or evil.
We do not condone it, but we don't need to repay.
The kind of response that Jesus expects is the word forgiveness. To forgive and be forgiven. It's what we believe. It's how we pray.
Forgive us our trespasses. And as we forgive those who trespass against us, forgiveness heals.
The poet Maya Angelou once said, hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but it has not solved one yet. And St. Paul, if you can read between the lines and understand what he's saying from time to time, he says, basically, because we're children of God, we have the opportunity, the ability and the responsibility to act in a way that Jesus, that Jesus way of life is real and possible. When we try to imitate the way of life of Jesus nonviolence, it's real and it's possible. God's love is real.
God's love is visible when we speak his word, when we put it into practice.
Do to others, Jesus said, as you would have them do to you.
It still is the golden rule. It sums up Jesus teaching. We believe it, of course.
It takes courage to live it.
