For What It's Worth by Erin

“Love your enemies…” Say what?!? You heard me, or should I say, we just heard what Jesus said in today’s Gospel. And I would love to tell you that I have the answer to what He means and that I have it all figured out, and that I am good at it. Well guess again. (I don’t, I haven’t and I’m not!)

So what does Jesus say about how to do this. A scripture scholar I like put’s it this way, boiling it down to three ways. To do good, to say good and to pray. Now, it’s not the logical way that we would respond to our enemies, but it’s the logical way for our God  to respond. He loves us so gratuitously that He went to the cross for us. And what did He do from the cross? He prayed for His enemies and forgave them. This is a lesson on the way of the cross.

So the hint here is that this is not something that we can do on our own. As in all virtue, it requires God’s grace. Speaking for myself, spending some time meditating on today’s Gospel would be useful, if. only to invite Jesus’ assistance in living more this way.  We are called to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful.

Imitatio Dei is to imitate God. In this case, we can try to imitate His mercy by imitating the actions of Jesus who shows us the way. May God give us the grace to want to think and act this way. Amen +