Gospel living calls us to readjust radically how we live. We are not to be satisfied with minimums, not to be stuck in socially accepted ways of responding to others, not to be limited in our loving. We readjust our way of living by paying much more attention to the way Jesus himself lived. The poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the needy, enemies, those who persecute us – indeed our very family members, coworkers, friends – all cry out to us for our love and care. This is how, concretely we respond to Jesus’ command to be “perfect.”
We hear today the command to love your enemy. This is one of the most difficult ones for us to keep. Jesus says we are to follow the Golden Rule, to do to others as you would have them do to you. This is perhaps the greatest challenge for today’s Christian. Our airwaves and newspapers are filled with angry denunciations of any who hold a different opinion from that of any speaker. Let us pray for the grace we need to stem the tide of anger and hatred in the world around us.
