Pic : www.lsa.umich.edu
Today’s Gospel (Luke 6: 27-38) is difficult to hear – and even more difficult to carry out. There’s a bunch of things in there that will free us and allow us to live the way that Christ intended for us to live. Jesus is providing us with this message of love and how we need to treat others. Honestly, the road to truly loving one another is not easy, but it’s a road that we are asked to walk every day.
Mother Teresa once said:
“Love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.”
Today, we remember the tragic events that happened 13 years ago on September 11th. And we ask ourselves, “How can we love our enemies when they do such horrific things?” This tragic event can honestly bear fruit if we resolve to work to transform the world so this will not happen again.
And our Gospel today shows us how we can make that transformation. Jesus said, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, forgive others, stop judging others, and do good things and expect nothing in return. All these things “hurt” us because it holds us prisoner. We are all held captive because we cannot let them go. They build up in us, eat away at us, boil up within us, and it keeps us from loving each other as sisters and brothers of Christ.
But when we empty ourselves and eliminate our tendencies to only be concerned about our own needs, and we truly focus on the needs of others, that’s when our transformation begins. In order to love others, we need to give of ourselves entirely. Love has to hurt because love hurts when it changes us. It’s time for us to make that change in our lives. It’s time for us to transform the world – by loving one another like Jesus loves us.
