HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF 11TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME. (2)

HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF 11TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME.

THEME: I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

BY: Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA.

*READINGS OF THE DAY*
2 Corinthians 8:1-9
Psalm 145:2,5-9
Matthew 5:43-48

*LITURGICAL COLOUR*
GREEN

*INTRODUCTION*
Good morning dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate Tuesday of week 11 in Ordinary Time.

*FROM OUR FIRST READING*
In our first reading today, St. Paul highlighted how each and every members of the faithful in Macedonia had lived their lives well as those whom the Lord had called and chosen, in their support for each other and in their love for God as well as in their love for their fellow brothers and sisters. In essence, they were following the very examples set by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who had come into our midst, enduring persecution, rejection, stubbornness and betrayal by those who were closest to Him. He had endured all this bad treatment, so that He might save us all from our impending destruction.

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*FROM OUR GOSPEL READING*
I am very sure that many of you would agree with me that the most difficult command of Jesus is found in today’s gospel reading: Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”. Honestly speaking, how can this be? This goes against our natural tendency of hitting back at someone who hurts us. For Jesus, ‘enemies,’ are not just those people we don’t like, but also about people who hate us, who wish us evil and even ready to hurt us and kill us. If you notice, Jesus does not tell us to like our enemies or approve their behaviors and beliefs. Rather, He tells us we must wish our enemies no harm; we must care about them; we must be willing to sacrifice for them; we must forgive them. You know this is impossible to implement. But in God, nothing is impossible.

*CONCLUSION*
Dear friends, Jesus calls on us to pray for those who persecute us because that is the kind of person that he is, and more fundamentally, that is who God is like. God’s love does not discriminate between the morally good and the morally bad; he makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on honest and dishonest alike. God’s love is the same for all; what differs is the response of people to that love. In so far as our love for others is not dependent on how people respond to it, we will be as perfect as God is perfect.

*The Lord be with You.*

Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA.

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