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Homily stories

19 Aug 2012 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Wisdom or foolishness? Those are two of the choices scripture offers this week. How to live wisely and well is a timeless question for Christians. Fortunately the words of Jesus and the gospel stories that depict him in action are timeless guides, as relevant today as when they first happened. Jesus lived and taught values that we can use to govern our own choices today. Here are a few of the most fundamental: Mark 8:36: There is no profit in gaining the world if you lose your soul along the way. Mark 4:14-20: Cultivate the Word carefully so that it can bear fruit in your life. Watch out for distractions! Matthew 22:36-40: Begin and end with love. Matthew 7:12: Dust off the Golden Rule and practice it. Matthew 5:43-44: Everyone loves their friends, nothing special there. Try loving and blessing your enemies! Mark 10:42-43: Service is the path to greatness. Don’t believe you are up to the job? Luke 11:9-10: Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.

Authors Daniel Grippo

Wisdom christian values golden rule love your enemies Service

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Homily stories

13 May 2012 - Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

We could all use a little more love. Wars, conflicts, fights, and feuds abound in our world, churches, communities, and homes. It is a scandal how little effort much of humanity and most individual humans put into loving one another. We don’t have to agree with one another; we don’t even have to like one another, but we must love one another if we are to remain in God, who is love. How can we love those whom we see as our enemies–opposed to the fundamental truths we hold dear? Saint Francis de Sales, a Doctor of the church, who lived during the trying times of the Reformation, offers this advice in his Treatise on the Love of God: When we see a neighbour who is created to the image and likeness of God, . . . should we not bless him a thousand and a thousand times? And why? For the love of him? No verily: for we know not whether he be worthy of love or hatred in himself; but wherefore then? For the love of God, who has made him to his own image and likeness, and consequently capable of participating in his goodness, in grace and in glory. For the love of God, I say, from whom he is, whose he is, by whom he is, in whom he is, for whom he is, and whom he resembles in a most particular manner.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

Love love your neighbor love your enemies

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Quotes

25 Jan 2009 - Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

God’s will is to save us, and nothing pleases God more than our coming back to God with true repentance. —Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662) The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! —Luke 11:32 Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god . . . . Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts. —Eugene Peterson Parent of parents and Friend of all friends, Your intent in thus disposing was different from this; For here without entreaty you took me into your care, And by degrees led me from all else That at length I might see and settle my love in you. —Mary Ward (1585-1645) We cannot be fishers of men and women if in our hearts we are haters of them. This truth . . . reveals a nonviolent ethic: Love even your enemies; become fishers of them. We will not win people to our convictions if we despise them. –Susan B. W. Johnson, Christian Century (1/15/97) Christian faith is lived in discipleship to Jesus Christ. As disciples, through the power of the Holy Spirit, our lives become increasingly centered on Jesus and the kingdom he proclaims. By opening ourselves to him we find community with all his faith-filled disciples and by their example come to know Jesus more intimately. By following the example of his self-giving love we learn to be Christian disciples in our own time, place, and circumstances. —Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

repentance Jonah love your enemies

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The inner word

19 Feb 2017 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Earlier in Matthew the gospel asked you to settle on your way to court so not to be judged yourself. Now you are asked to deepen your relationships, to be kind and merciful, even with your enemies. What injustice in your own life keeps you from an open heart? What keeps you stuck in resentfulness? You belong to God, and with God’s love your heart has the capacity to let go and move on.

love your enemies

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Exploring the word

19 Feb 2017 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

One cold stare invites another. Insult is traded for insult. One punch follows another. Somewhere down the road, there’s an exchange of gunfire. Wearying cycles of violence and vengeance spiral through history, each side seeking to deliver the blow that leads to decisive victory. But there’s no victory. There’s not even a chance of even-steven. Retaliatory justice is never just, because trading pain for pain, loss for loss, never heals anything. Violence only gives birth to more of the same. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” sounds like a good proposal. It seeks to bring equity into the game of reprisal, keeping a lid on how far one might go to achieve satisfaction in revenge. You can’t take more from the other guy than he took from you. It sounds right. But how does a hurled stone discriminate between a tooth or half a jaw? What if my single bullet, meant to reply to yours, starts a fire that burns down your village? Taking the life of an enemy’s child for the death of your own isn’t equitable if you had one child and he has a dozen. There’s no strict sense of justice in the land of loss, no measured steps to take in the wild territory of retribution. Most of us, of course, won’t be reaching for rocks or firearms in our attempts to get even with those who wrong us. We’ll find the shaming word, the scorching secret, and hurl that out in the open. We’ll start a lawsuit, or just a rumor. We’ll steal from the tight-pursed employer, which hurts the boss a little but turns us into thieves. Even if we do nothing, say nothing, just carrying the smoldering desire for vengeance in our hearts poisons our capacity to love, forgive, and be human. What would Jesus have us do in the face of the real wrongs perpetrated against us? Surprisingly, he doesn’t advocate doing nothing. Jesus expects us to retaliate against wrong—with good. Ignoring evil isn’t the way to fight it, Jesus says. We must overcome evil with the stronger spirit of love. If you’re offended, don’t return an offense but remain both innocent and vulnerable. If detained unfairly, stay twice as long and strive to make the oppressor a friend. Be generous without keeping a record of what’s owed. Respond to haters with love, and to curses with blessings. This method of reply may sound like madness, entirely out of the question. Where’s the justice in it? The reply is that there’s no human justice in it, if that’s what you’re seeking. But there is divine justice in it. Because this is how God deals with us. Related scripture links Be holy and perfect: Exod. 19:6; Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7-8, 24-26; Num. 15:40-41; Deut. 14:2; Jas. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:16 Temples of the Spirit: 1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:19-22 Those who think themselves wise: Isa. 5:21; Gal. 6:3 Love your neighbor as yourself: Matt. 5:43; 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; Jas. 2:8; 1 Jn. 3:14 Catechism links Love of enemies: 1825; 2608; 2647; 2844 Jesus and the church as temples of God: 797-798; 1179

Authors Alice Camille

Violence Justice revenge eye for an eye love your enemies

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Homily stories

19 Feb 2017 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Six years ago, Bishop Don Samuel Ruiz died. He’d been bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas in southern México during turbulent years. He was known and loved for his empowering of the indigenous people in his diocese. But in the 1990s, he was not so much loved for acting as a mediator between the Mexican government and the Zapatista rebels. In fact, during those violent times, the bishop received many death threats. In 2011, soon after his death, Dominican sister and New Testament scholar, Barbara Reid, remembered him and wrote in America Magazine, “Some years ago I had the opportunity to meet him. In the course of our interview, I asked him how he had come to live so completely the command to love one’s enemies, when he had so many. He gave me a puzzled look and responded: ‘I have no enemies.’” Sister Barbara continues, “Now it was my turn to be puzzled, as he had arrived for the interview in a bulletproof van, accompanied by three large, armed bodyguards supplied by the Mexican government, at their insistence. He explained further, ‘There are some who want to make themselves enemy to me, but I have no enemies.’”

Authors Father Larry Janowski O.F.M.

love your enemies

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Quotes

19 Feb 2017 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

From now on there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness. –Ivan Turgenev

love your enemies

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In other words

19 Feb 2017 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

“Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. “In a word, what I’m saying is, grow up. You’re Kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” From A New Message 4 Next Week (actapublications.com) based on The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2013).

eye for an eye love your enemies

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Love thy neighbor’s freedom of religion

19 Feb 2017 - Preaching the News for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus sets a new standard for tolerance and even loving kindness toward those who we might have traditionally thought of as enemies. Whereas Americans used to harbor deep suspicions of those whose religion differed from their own, a new study from Pew Research Center suggests warmer feelings now exist for nearly every major religious group. Whereas Mormons received a “neutral” rating of 48 in June 2014, that’s now risen to 54 percent of Americans who say they have a positive view of the LDS faith. This six-point gain has moved Mormons toward the “warm” side of the spectrum, according to Pew. Almost every religious group received higher marks this time around, though, with the exception of evangelical Christianity, which remained flat at 61. The biggest gains were made by atheists (41 to 50), Muslims (40 to 48), and Hindus (50 to 58). However, Mormons rank dead last among the 18-to-29 year old demographic, whose 54 rating for Mormons was their lowest of any religion. Mormonism’s highest rating was with the 65+ age group, which gave it a 59 percent approval rating. Evangelical Christians are the only group for which the mean rating did not change since the question was last asked in 2014. Americans’ feelings toward Mormons and Hindus have shifted from relatively neutral places on the thermometer to somewhat warmer ratings of 54 and 58, respectively. Ratings of Buddhists rose from 53 to 60. And mainline Protestants, whom respondents were not asked to rate in 2014, receive a warm rating of 65 in the new survey. The increase in ratings is broad based. Warmer feelings are expressed by people in all the major religious groups analyzed, as well as by both Democrats and Republicans, men and women, and younger and older adults. However, the ratings given to particular religious groups still vary widely depending on who is being asked. For example, young adults—those ages 18 to 29—express warmer feelings toward Muslims than older Americans do. Moreover, young adults rate all of the groups in the study within a relatively tight range, from 54 degrees for Mormons to 66 for Buddhists. By contrast, older Americans (ages 65 and older) rate some religious groups, such as mainline Protestants (75) and Jews (74), very warmly, and others, such as Muslims and atheists (44 degrees each), much more coolly. Lessons drawn from the readings The reading from the Book of Leviticus instructs the reader to “cherish no grudge,” but instead to “love your neighbor as yourself.” When it comes to religious identity, it sounds as if younger Americans might be taking that message more to heart, with their more tolerant ratings, than their older compatriots—or is it just that they don’t care all that much about religious identity? Final thought in light of the news We’ve come a long way as a society from the days our grandparents were discouraged from “fraternizing with the enemy”—for Catholics, that would have included most Protestants and certainly Jewish people, not to mention “those other” religions. We’ve come a long way from the era when a Catholic running for president raised alarm bells for many non-Catholics. But have we journeyed to a place of true religious tolerance, or landed more in an era of religious indifference? Have we truly learned to love our “enemies,” or have we just learned to ignore our neighbor? The verdict is still out on those questions.

religious tolerance religious indifference pew research center love your neighbor love your enemies

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Quote of the week

19 Feb 2017 - Preaching the News for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher. —The Dalai Lama

Tolerance love your enemies dalai lama

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