love your enemies
Courage!
7th Sunday Ordinary Time
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: February 23, 2025
What is needed to be a Catholic today? Which virtue or quality do you think is most needed to be a Catholic in the world today?
Courage!
Listen to the words of Jesus: “Love your enemies.” “do good to those who hate you” “bless those who curse you” “if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” This is a vision, a way of living, that is counter our usual way of seeing things. It is really hard and it requires the virtue of Courage.
This chapter of Luke’s Gospel may be the most difficult to embrace and live. It is also the gospel message of Jesus that we Christians have often chosen to ignore throughout history.
Years ago I remember someone describing how he was discussing with his mother his attempt to embrace non-violence. At a certain point he said plainly, “Essentially it’s an attempt to learn what it actually means to love my enemies.” His mother looked at him and said, “Really? That’s very hard.” It was an honest response and he realized it may have been the first time that this 80 year old woman had been in a direct conversation about the personal implications of love of enemy. Do not most of us Christians either ignore this teaching or try to explain it away?
Loving your enemies, blessing those who curse you, giving without expecting anything in return, all of this takes courage. It is not weakness, but true strength. It is not being passive, but a courageous way of living that allows us to confront evil without becoming evil.
Encountering the mystery of Christ requires us to encounter the love of enemy. But, often we are afraid of this mystery of Christ. Love of enemy is explained away, not lived. If we come to church and take part in rituals here, if we sit in the Adoration Chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, if we spend hours in prayer, but we do not explore love of enemy, then it is empty ritual. The mystery of Christ is something radical and passionate. Are we ready to face the love of enemy?
We live in a world that is battered by human beings damaging each other and the earth. Only a Christianity that embraces the mysticism of love of enemy will be able to offer something towards the healing of humanity and our world.
We sometimes say that Faith is a gift. Almost as though it is just something that some people have and others do not. But, if it is a gift, then it can be asked for. Ask for faith. Pray for it. Ask for a deep faith that enters the mystery of love of enemy. Only such a faith moves people to oppose injustice and to work against evil. Historically, we Christians have prayed, but then defended and supported wars, slavery, and all sorts of injustice. Sometimes in the name of “god.”
Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” “do good and lend, expecting nothing in return.” It is not transactional. Christian spirituality goes much deeper, it is not transactional where I only do good to get something in return. Where I am a friend only if I will get something in return. This is something shallow and does not enter the full mystery of Christ.
We must embrace non-violence. In our language, in how we treat others, in how we live. A non-violence that embraces the mystery of love of enemy is the only way to bring peace and healing to our world. But, this takes great courage. We live in a world where everyone is being encouraged to spend even more money on our militaries and weapons. We are frightened, and in fear we are told to spend on more and bigger weapons.
The love of enemy is at the heart of Christian teaching. It is perhaps the most unique teaching of Christ. Non-violence is not weakness, it is not passivity in the face of evil. Non-violence is a radical way to oppose violence and evil without becoming evil ourselves.
This is why courage is essential to embracing the mystery of Christ in love of enemy. As Merton once said, “fear is the root of all violence.” When we give in to fear, we respond with violence and attacking the other. We need the courage to resist this tendency towards violence. The courage not to be controlled by fear. We need to ask ourselves: What are my fears? Who do I fear? How is that fear leading me to violence in my language, my relationships, my way of life? Is the way I speak of certain people violent? How is fear leading me away from love?
Do you want to be a Catholic? Then you must encounter the mystery of Christ in the love of enemy. Are you ready to honestly face the love of enemy? This will take great courage. But, it is the only path to the fullness of the Christian mystery and it is the only hope for us to bring healing and peace and harmony into our world.
What Is The Most Difficult Teaching Of Jesus?
7th Sunday Ordinary Time
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: February 19, 2023
Which teaching of Jesus do you think is most ignored in our world today? Which teaching of Jesus do you think is the most difficult to obey?
We just heard in the Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This teaching is quietly ignored by most people and by most us who call ourselves Christians. I think that it is the most difficult teaching of Jesus to follow.
But, it is also perhaps the teaching that could make the most difference in our world. The one teaching that could really change our world for the better.
This is the supreme challenge of Christian faith. This radical embrace is the one thing that separates Christianity from all other religions. All religions, in some form or another, have the commandment to love God and love your neighbour as yourself. But, this new commandment to “love your enemy” goes radically deeper.
Jesus was not passive in the face of evil, but only offered non-violent resistance. For the reign of God will lead to the complete elimination of every form of violence between people and nations.
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” means, do not be to others as they are to you. Otherwise they control your behaviour. This calls for a change of heart, where my heart only follows the heart of God. Praying for those who persecute us is important because that prayer is able to form our hearts in a new way. We are not formed by our enemies but formed by God. It does not mean to be passive in the face of evil or injustice. But, it is a non-violent resistance so that we do not become what we hate.
Martin Luther King once said, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding.” This is the real test of authentic Christian faith. Love of enemies.
The first step to living this love of enemies is recognizing our own dignity. That you are loved by God and have an essential dignity. If a wife is being physically abused by her husband, the first step is for that woman to recognize her own dignity, that she does not deserve to be treated in that way. Then she can resist and remove herself from a situation in which her dignity is not respected.
Do we see the image of God in the outsiders, in the least of our brothers and sisters? Do we see the image of God even in our enemies? Either we see the image of God in all created things or we don’t see it at all. If our love is limited, if our acceptance of others is limited, then we are not seeing with the eyes of God.
Jesus is pushing us deeper. If we choose to hate or to reject certain people then we are not faithful to the vision of Jesus. Do I exclude people of a different race, or people of a different religion, or sick people or gay people or people on welfare or homeless people or whomever we have decided to hate, then we are not seeing with the eyes of Jesus.
If some religious or political leader is teaching in a way that causes you to hate, if they are leading you to hate a certain group of people, then turn away from their teaching. Any leader who encourages hatred of a group of people is not worth following. That should be an automatic sign to us that it is someone we should not follow
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is perhaps the most difficult teaching of Jesus. It is one which we often choose to ignore. Hatred leads us to become like our enemy, to become what we hate.
Only love of enemies can form our heart into the heart of God. Love of enemies is the ultimate test of true Christian faith, it is the one teaching that is most capable of changing our lives and our world for better.
The Way To Peace & Harmony: Will You Follow It?
7th Sunday In Ordinary Time – Year C
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: February 24, 2019
If someone offered you a way that could lead to peace and harmony in our world, in your family, in our lives, would you embrace it? Imagine a way to peace in the world, in our families, in our lives.
Well, Jesus offered that to us in the gospel we just heard. Following this way of Jesus would lead to such peace. But, it is a way that turns upside down our way of thinking and acting, it is a way that our world simply thinks is silly. If we lived by this gospel way of Jesus it would make the biggest impact of anything we could do to make our world and families better places.
This is the great test of our faith. Not going to church on Sunday, but living this way of Jesus that we just heard in Luke’s Gospel.
There are many in our world today who claim to be protecting Christianity, while acting in a way that is directly opposite of the Gospel we just heard. It is truly radical, yet the only way to true peace and harmony. What is this way Jesus presents? Let us listen carefully.
Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you? Love your enemies. give expecting nothing in return. Do not judge. Do not condemn. Forgive. Give. Be Merciful.
Well, are you ready to follow this way? If we are honest, when we look in our world, in our lives, we see that our nations prefer guns and weapons, we prefer vengeance and getting even with others, we are often upset because we feel we did not get what we deserve. So, we continue to follow a path that is destructive, divisive.
Once upon a time there were two shopkeepers who were bitter rivals. Their stores were across the street from each other, and they would spend each day sitting in the doorway, keeping an eye on each other’s business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at this rival.
One night, an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, “God has sent me to teach you a lesson. He will give you anything you ask for, but I want you to know that, whatever you get, your competitor across the street will get twice as much.”
The angel said, “Would you like to be wealthy? You can be very wealthy, but he will be twice as rich. Do you want to lead a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. You can be famous, have children you will be proud of, whatever you desire. But whatever is granted to you, he will be granted twice as much.”
The man frowned, thought for a moment, and said, “Alright, my request is this: strike me blind in one eye.”
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. But, we say that is not possible, we prefer our vengeance, our getting even. We do not want the non-violent way of Jesus.
God’s mercy revealed by Jesus is a scandal to our world.
God’s mercy is beyond our imagination.
But, it is the key to peace, and you and I living mercy in our lives is the key to the possibility of peace and harmony in our world, in our families, in our lives.
Jesus offers us a way to peace in today’s Gospel, will we embrace it?