{"id":2811,"date":"2019-02-24T12:31:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T17:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2811"},"modified":"2019-02-24T12:31:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T17:31:20","slug":"7th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/7th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-c-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

7<\/a>th<\/a><\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C<\/a>
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13 (8a)
1 Corinthians 15:45-49
Luke 6:27-38
February 24, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of what Jesus says in today\u2019s\ngospel can be summed up in one sentence from the beginning, \u201clove your enemies, do good to those who hate\nyou, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t the way many people today.  They might ask, \u201cwhy should I do good to\nsomeone who hates me.\u201d  It might seem\nimpossible to love our enemies, after all, if I love them are they really my\nenemy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To that I will offer two\nresponses.  First, if our loving them has\nstopped them from being our enemy, that is a very good thing, perhaps the very\npoint of loving our enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, to ask if we can love our\nenemies we need to ask what it means to love. \nDespite Facebook giving us the impression that we can have hundreds of\nfriends, not everyone is our friend.  People\nthat we have never met are not our friends in the sense of knowing them but\nthat doesn\u2019t mean that we can\u2019t care about them.  St. Thomas Aquinas said, \u201cto love is to will\nthe good of another.\u201d  We are not to\ncurse those who curse us.  In loving our\nneighbors as God loves us, we wish and pray for the best for everyone, even if\nthey mistreat us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? \nWhy pray for them?  Why do good to\nthose who hate us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, because it is the right thing\nto do.  Think of what we pray during the\nLord\u2019s Prayer, \u201cthy kingdom come.\u201d  If we\nwant to change the world, someone has to be the first to \u201cdo good<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much fighting goes on because we\nthink the other person started it?  When\nsiblings fight, one might blame the other for starting it.  When gangs fight, their defense often is\nbased on claiming the other gang was the first to start it.  What about multi-generational rivalries?  For example, the way the Protestants and\nCatholics had long clashed in Ireland. \nHow about the Jews and Palestinians in Israel?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does anyone know who started it?  It goes on for too long to worry about who\nstarted it.  It is time to end conflicts\nlike this, not by war but with love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it seems hard to \u201cdo good to those who hate you,<\/em>\u201d start\nwith a prayer \u201cfor those who mistreat you<\/em>.\u201d  Pray for them to receive the blessings they\nneed.  Pray that they be open to God\u2019s Will.  Pray that you are open to God\u2019s Will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible to love our enemies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. \nWe need to look no further than our first reading.  Saul was the king but David was the one to\ndefeat the Philistines.  David was held\nin higher esteem by the people.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than being grateful for what\nDavid did, Saul was jealous of him. \nDavid had married Saul\u2019s daughter and Saul\u2019s son Jonathan was David\u2019s\nbest friend.  Yet Saul\u2019s jealousy\ncontrolled his actions.  He went with\n3,000 men \u201cto search for David<\/em>\u201d with\nplans to kill him.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David knew this.  Those who knew of this would not have faulted\nDavid for killing Saul.  It would have\nbeen seen as self-defense.  Yet, when\nDavid came upon Saul and his troops sleeping, David refused to kill Saul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He does take Saul\u2019s spear, goes a\ndistance away, and calls out to them so that Saul might know that David had the\nopportunity to kill Saul but did not. \nWhy should Saul know this?  To\nbreak the cycle of violence in the only way possible with love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I already said, David could have\nchosen to kill Saul and many would have seen it as justified.  Yet, Saul\u2019s men may not have.  They might have pursued David and the\nviolence continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David chose the way of love.  It is what God does with us when we sin, \u201cNot according to our sins does he deal with\nus, nor does he requite us according to our crimes.<\/em>\u201d  God forgives us when we sin.  We need to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In ten days, we will start Lent.  What are you going to do for Lent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there someone you have refused to\nlove or do good to?  Perhaps Lent is the\ntime to start praying for those who have mistreated you.  Maybe it is time to stop mistreating others\nand choose to do good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are we to do this?  It is not easy.  To do so we need grace.  Maybe for Lent you need to do something to\nopen yourself to God\u2019s grace.  How about\nattending daily Mass?  If everyday isn\u2019t\npossible, how about once a week?  If 8:00\na.m. is too early, during Lent we have Mass on Friday\u2019s at 11:00 a.m.  If you work during the week, we have Mass\nSaturday morning at 7:30 a.m.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can\u2019t make Mass, how about\nStations of the Cross Friday evening to think about how Jesus suffered for\nus?  We have Stations in English at 6:00\np.m. in our church and in Spanish at 7:00 p.m. in the chapel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can\u2019t do that, for Lent, just\nask God to help you open yourself to his love, his grace so that you in turn\nmay \u201cDo to others as you would have them\ndo to you.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13 (8a)1 Corinthians 15:45-49Luke 6:27-38February 24, 2019 Most of what Jesus says in today\u2019s gospel can be summed up in one sentence from the beginning, \u201clove your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[563,565,564,566],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-Jl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2813,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions\/2813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}