Love of neighbour, illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan, calls us to love those farthest away from us, writes Father Hawkswell. (David Teniers/Wikimedia)
7th
Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
First
Reading: 1 Sm
26:2,7-9,12-13,22-25
Second
Reading: 1 Cor
15:45-49
Gospel
Reading: Lk
6:27-38
In this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus gives the command which most clearly distinguishes Christianity: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
Lest we think that this love does not have to be practical, he gives examples: “If anyone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.”
The First Reading offers the example of David, who spared Saul’s life even though Saul had treacherously tried to kill him. David understood what the Catechism of the Catholic Church stated thousands of years later: that the “path of charity; that is, of the love of God and of neighbour” is “the often narrow path between the cowardice which gives in to evil and the violence which, under the illusion of fighting evil, only makes it worse.”
If we are still tempted to think in terms of vengeance, St. Paul reminds us in the Second Reading that before we can inherit heaven, we must learn to think as God thinks, for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”
The love Jesus describes is the love God has for us, the Catechism notes: “Christ died out of love for us, while we were still ‘enemies.’ The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbour of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself.”
“Love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return,” Jesus said. How utterly opposed this is to the world’s advice: “Fill your own cup first, then nourish others from the overflow.”
The love Jesus commands gives us “the spiritual freedom of the sons of God,” the Catechism says. A Christian “no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who first loved us.
“If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves,” it explains. “If we pursue the enticement of wages ... we resemble mercenaries. Finally, if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands ... we are in the position of children.”
God himself is love, St. John said. We can describe Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as lover, beloved, and love, or giver, recipient, and gift, St. Augustine said. Even apart from his creation, God is love in his very being: an endless, infinite explosion of self-giving.
In his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (“God is love”), Pope Benedict XVI points out that this God, who in himself lacks nothing, actually loves us with a love that we can recognize from our own experience of human love. “God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape,” the kind of love that is completely selfless, seeking nothing for itself, but only the good of the beloved.
God made us in his image, inscribing “in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion,” Pope St. John Paul II said. “Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.”
Meditating on her role in the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux said that if the Church is “a body composed of different members,” it “must have a heart, and a heart burning with love.” Without this love, she said, Christ’s Mystical Body cannot function. She concluded that love “is the vocation which includes all others”; therefore, “in the heart of the Church, I will be love.”
Father Hawkswell teaches Catholic Faith - in Plain English, a free course on the Catholic faith from now until Pentecost: every Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way (just off 33rd Avenue between Oak and Cambie) and twice every Monday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Anthony’s Parish, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver, and from 7 to 9 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre. Everyone is welcome, Catholic or non-Catholic. For more info and the list of topics and dates, visit rcav.org/adult-catechesis-course.