Word to the Wise
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - Tuesday in the 11th Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Cor 8:1-9 and Matt 5:43-48]I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for his makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same.......So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
History gives us many great "villains" to hate! We can all come up with a list. We could probably come up with a list of folks that are currently living for whom we have less than positive regard and maybe an active disregard! Jesus says that if we would be "perfect," we have to love folks we might otherwise hate and also love those we know that hate us! We may not "like" somebody and we may find it difficult to to be around someone whom we know doesn't care for us, but if we wish to be like God, we have to love them!
This is what one might call "disinterested" love - a love that does not require reciprocal response. As Jesus says, "If you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?" He's not talking about the recompense that we might look for in hoping that a certain someone will return our feeling for them! There are wonderful examples of this disinterested love in people like Dorothy Day or Mother Teresa of Calcutta or St. Martin De Porres.
We may have many "likes" and "dislikes" about food, careers, activities, etc. But love can only truly be used about other persons: God and neighbor. When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, he was responding to an effort on the part of the lawyer to narrow the range of people to be loved! The Samaritan ignored his own feelings about the man on the road and showed compassion and love for him. [Luke 10:25-37] Jesus' last words to the lawyer are: "Go and do likewise!" Those words are directed to us also! AMEN