You shall Love your enemies!

Did you know that following the Lord would be easy?! Sure, just one Mass a week, if you want or aren’t too tired from the work week. Just chill, and if you like Jesus, you won’t get sick and you’ll have plenty of friends and plenty of money!

This doesn’t sound right to your ears…or at least I hope not. Being Christian is not taking the easy way out, checking out from this world, relaxing, or ignoring our imminent deaths. “Be holy as God is holy” says the first reading. Wait, I just thought that was for the nuns, right? “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

Since this is true, you should begin to resemble some of the heroes of faith:

Moses - asked to walk in the desert for 40 years and lead a rebellious people.

Joan of Arc - the saints would appear to her and asked her to lead an army, and as the general had to keep sin out of the armies, from profanity, immoral behaviour, and skipping Mass! You try doing that to soldiers!

Our own Lord, whose prayer in the desert for 40 days we are about to embark on this coming Wednesday.

Warring against Satan

Jesus is by no means commanded us to be weak, we are to be docile in his hands but morally strong. We must not sin, we must conquer sins via virtue and by his grace. Thus, that doesn’t mean that we are doormats to be tread upon by everyone <It also doesn’t mean that we complain when things don’t go our way, we aren’t complainers!>. It means we are fighting the war against Satan. It means that when we do the will of God we are contravening the plans of Satan. You also know how easy it is to be tricked by Satan, to think a bad is a good and do it. Thus, when we conquer sin in ourselves we are warring against the kingdom of Satan. When we love our enemy and seek their conversion of heart toward God, we are subverting Satan.  And does Satan love war and contention? I suppose he does. It seems that even though God may have commanded some to go to war in the Bible and over the centuries it was not out of enjoyment of war. That being said, a just war is different than murdering, which is not permissible. But you, fathers especially, you must protect your families, spiritually mentally and physically.

Christian Virtue

When Christ says, offer your other cheek as well, he is referring to a backhanded slap, he’s referring to when you are insulted <humility vs pride>. He says be prepared to hand over your undergarments when they sue you for your outer garments <poverty vs our desire to save for our future>.  Christ demands that when we are ordered to serve, go above and beyond <dictatorship of time and energy vs availability>. Lend to others <Trust in God vs having enough for tomorrow>. “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Mk 8:33

Story

When I was at Seminarian I was riding with one of my priest friends to a private mass. We were driving through the OC we were stopped at a light I looked over at the car next to me and couldn’t see the driver. It was odd because someone should be driving the car. But, the guy was low riding and the seat was reclined all the way back. The passenger in the car started gesturing at me to stop looking at them like that,  but then he saw my friend wearing priest clothes and he said, “I’m sorry sir, I’m just saying you shouldn’t do that.” Who wants to get disrespected? But if you do get disrespected it is an easy way to pray and align your sufferings with Jesus who was disrespected as well and receive slaps and insults, are we not to do the same for our Lord?

When Jesus elsewhere says that he must be rejected by the chief priests and the scribes and Pharisees, that he must be tortured and put to death. Then Peter says “heaven forbid!” And Christ says “get behind me, Satan.” It occurred to me that Peter said this because somehow he knew that whatever happened to the master mus happen to the disciple, and so he said this out of fear and out of self-preservation. We ourselves say, oh yes, I will follow Christ’s law, until it gets hard, until we taste the sting of the cross, the sting of the whips, the backhand, the insult, and then we get haughty and self-righteous and think well this sure isn’t as fun to be a Christian anymore! But this faith was never meant to be fun, it is meant to get you to heaven.

Enemies

So what I recommend we all do right now is take a look into our hearts and see who we hate. Who are our enemies? I encourage you to say a little prayer for them, hoping for their conversion of heart one day, someday to accept Christ’s loving invitation to peace, to love, to harmony, to patient endurance just like Christ, because they have seen your light and would like them some of that!

“They are the atheists who consider Christ to be no more than an example of tolerance, cooperation and kindness.

They are the humanists who see no need for "religion" unless it can be useful in preventing poverty and war.

They are the naturalists who perform the corporal works of mercy while rejecting the spiritual

They are the heretics who claim to follow God's commandments but reject His Church.

They are the modernists who seek to "evolve" the beliefs and practices of the Church in order to "better accommodate" the changing times.

They are the abortionists who care for newborn infants days but are ok destroying life within the womb and those cowards who say, “I’m personally against it but who am I to pontificate for all?”

They are the schismatics who claim for themselves apostolic succession but openly defy the successor of the Prince of the Apostles.

They are the pagans that live according to their conscience, only, which is constantly adjusted by their environment.”

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/sacraments/soldier.htm

Conclusion

These lessons that Jesus taught us today in the sermon on the mount and the week before, are not gonna make you popular or rich or cool or ward off all diseases, or even wise in the eyes of the world, but this is a hidden wisdom and the wisdom that Paul was talking about that goes beyond understanding that if we are conformed to God’s words in this life we will look like him at our end and share his reward in heaven.