Looking for Love

The texts in the Roman Catholic Lectionary today deal with evil and enemies as ancient as 850 BCE and as recent as today. The episode from the First Book of Kings tells of the message to Ahab, the King of Israel in Samaria, from Elijah that the evil done against Naboth would be punished by God. The response of Ahab to this news is that he repents and humbles himself to call on the mercy of God. Friar Jude Winkler comments that the God, who relents from punishing Ahab, offers all sinners mercy in our guilt. Our decision often is to refuse to seek and accept forgiveness from God and too often from others. The path by which some of the others in our lives, who we may meet like Molly Billings suggests, become enemies is varied and often a consequence of our failure to try and see them through the eyes of Jesus. The proclamation of Jesus today in the Gospel of Matthew that we should love our enemies certainly is a prescription for greater peace and harmony in all our social encounters both intimate and remote. Molly Billings is reminded of Martin Luther King Jr’s words “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.” The Love which we can share involves our being Present to those with whom we are estranged. The Love between the Father and Son is the Holy Spirit who will come to assist our prayer and action in being lovers of our enemies.