The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary challenge us to interact generously with those in need, especially those we regard as our opponents, persecutors, or enemies.
Patience and generosity for life
The reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians is encouragement to be generous.
* [8:1–5] The example of the Macedonians, a model of what ought to be happening at Corinth, provides Paul with the occasion for expounding his theology of “giving.”1
Psalm 146 gives praise for God’s Help.
* [Psalm 146] A hymn of someone who has learned there is no other source of strength except the merciful God. Only God, not mortal human beings (Ps 146:3–4), can help vulnerable and oppressed people (Ps 146:5–9). The first of the five hymns that conclude the Psalter.2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches, in the Sermon on the Mount, Love for enemies.
* [5:43–48] See Lv 19:18. There is no Old Testament commandment demanding hatred of one’s enemy, but the “neighbor” of the love commandment was understood as one’s fellow countryman. Both in the Old Testament (Ps 139:19–22) and at Qumran (1QS 9:21) hatred of evil persons is assumed to be right. Jesus extends the love commandment to the enemy and the persecutor. His disciples, as children of God, must imitate the example of their Father, who grants his gifts of sun and rain to both the good and the bad.3
George Butterfield reminds us that God pours out his gifts on all, even those who hate him. Jesus says that the most notorious sinners act like that. God does not and he challenges us to be like God - praying for those who persecute us, greeting those who hate us, and treating people right, no matter how they treat us. This, he says, is to be perfect, just as our heavenly Father is perfect.
Why are they so happy, my children asked? There is a joy that fills our lives whether we have a lot or a little. For believers, it is the Spirit of a God who humbled himself, didn’t cling to his lofty position and privilege, and became poor for our sakes. Praise the Lord, my soul!4
Don Schwager quotes “Pray for those who persecute you,” by John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D.
"For neither did Christ simply command to love but to pray. Do you see how many steps he has ascended and how he has set us on the very summit of virtue? Mark it, numbering from the beginning. A first step is not to begin with injustice. A second, after one has begun, is not to vindicate oneself by retaliating in kind. A third, to refuse to respond in kind to the one who is injuring us but to remain tranquil. A fourth, even to offer up one's self to suffer wrongfully. A fifth, to give up even more than the wrongdoer wishes to take. A sixth, to refuse to hate one who has wronged us. A seventh, even to love such a one. An eighth, even to do good to that one. A ninth, to entreat God himself on our enemy's behalf. Do you perceive how elevated is a Christian disposition? Hence its reward is also glorious. (excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 18.4)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 5:43-48 comments that we might be having trouble forgiving someone who has offended us. But just willing forgiveness doesn’t always soften an injured heart. The better answer is to cooperate with God’s grace by bringing your resentment and anger to prayer.
This doesn’t happen right away. It may take time before you are able to love someone who has hurt you. But as you call on the Spirit and ask him to fill you with his grace, you will find yourself doing what you never could have done on your own. Maybe you’ll begin praying for an “enemy”—or even become one of their trusted friends! None of us will ever become truly perfect, but we can confidently rely on the overflowing grace of God to help us come as close as possible. “Heavenly Father, help me to receive all the grace of the Holy Spirit that I need today.”6
Friar Jude Winkler comments that Paul asks the Church in Corinth for generosity in helping the poor in Palestine, especially Jerusalem. Our giving is about exercising generosity and not the amount. Friar Jude reminds us of Saint Augustine’s sense of evil as absence of love and of Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s love for those in need in Auschwitz.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that there are no perfect structures or perfect people. There is only the struggle to get there. It is Christ’s passion (patior in Latin, or the “suffering of reality”) that will save the world, when we are willing to join him in the pattern. “Your patient endurance will win you your lives,” writes Luke (21:19). Redemptive suffering instead of redemptive violence is the Jesus way. Patience comes from our attempts to hold together an always-mixed reality, not from expecting or demanding a perfect reality. That only makes us resentful and judgmental, which is what has characterized much of Christian history. Grateful people emerge in a world rightly defined, where even shadows are no surprise, but, in fact, an opportunity for compassion and forgiveness.
The more attached we are to any persona whatsoever, bad or good, the more shadow self we will have. So we need conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies, or we will have no way to ever spot or track our shadow self. They are our necessary mirrors, and even then, we usually catch it out of the corner of our eye—in a graced insight and those gifted moments of inner freedom.7
The Spirit opens our heart to the grace of God in which we see the brokenness and needs of others and receive the ability to respond with generosity and love.
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