Reading I 1 Sm 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 In those days, Saul went down to the desert of Ziph with three thousand picked men of Israel, to search for David in the desert of Ziph. So David and Abishai went among Saul’s soldiers by night and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade, with his spear thrust into the ground at his head and Abner and his men sleeping around him.
Abishai whispered to David: “God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I will not need a second thrust!” But David said to Abishai, “Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the LORD’s anointed and remain unpunished?” So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul’s head, and they got away without anyone’s seeing or knowing or awakening. All remained asleep, because the LORD had put them into a deep slumber.
Going across to an opposite slope, David stood on a remote hilltop at a great distance from Abner, son of Ner, and the troops. He said: “Here is the king’s spear. Let an attendant come over to get it. The LORD will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.”
Responsorial Psalm Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13 R (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful. Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. R The Lord is kind and merciful. He pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion. R The Lord is kind and merciful. Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. Not according to our sins does he deal with us, nor does he requite us according to our crimes. R The Lord is kind and merciful. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. R The Lord is kind and merciful.
Reading II 1 Cor 15:45-49 Brothers and sisters: It is written, The first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. But the spiritual was not first; rather the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven. As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly, and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.
Alleluia Jn 13:34 R. Alleluia, alleluia. I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you. R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Lk 6:27-38 Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER Here Jesus is not speaking in paradoxes or using nice turns of phrase. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is the Christian innovation. It is the Christian difference. Pray and love. The Lord demands of us the courage to have a love that does not count the cost. Because the measure of Jesus is love without measure. How many times have we neglected that demand, behaving like everyone else! Yet his commandment of love is not simply a challenge; it is the very heart of the Gospel. Do not worry about the malice of others, about those who think ill of you. Instead, begin to disarm your heart out of love for Jesus. For those who love God have no enemies in their hearts. The worship of God is contrary to the culture of hatred. (Homily, Pastoral visit to Bari, 23 February 2020)
FAUSTI - Behind every imperative one reads in watermark an indicative, which shows how God in Jesus loved me.They are strictly autobiographical words: He the first one to do what He said. This passage has the function of calling to mind how God loves me, so that I, recognizing myself as a pardoned sinner, may make this grace the source of my new life. The passage then reveals who God is for me, who I am for Him and who I must be for others. Jesus reveals to me the Face of a God who loves me while I am His enemy; He does to me good while I hate Him, He blesses me while I curse Him...as long as I am saved, He is ready to suffer every evil from me...He also gives me what I do not ask Him for and does not ask back what I have stolen from Him! His Love for me has made him go down an infinite road! He is all condescending towards my abyss. In this Love of His towards me, He reveals to me who I am for Him: infinitely loved, even if his enemy, hater, slanderous, renegade, violent, stripper, petulant, indigent and thief. Right to me, who are in this situation, He pours out His Love and gives me His grace with His Mercy. To know God in the Spirit is to experience and know God's Love for me as sinner, in Christ. This is Salvation. What He has done for me becomes a commitment for me, so that I may be who I am. The Face of Christ, the Son, is my true face. from 'homo homini lupus' I become 'homo homini Deus', like Him. This is my vocation as a son of God, to whom His Love calls and enables me. To the extent that I know His Face, I am transformed into His image, from glory to glory, according to the action of His Spirit (2 Cor 3:18). In these words, then, I see on the one hand the story of God in Jesus, in His Love for me; on the other hand, the story of me and of everyone who, healed from enmity towards God, is called to heal from enmity towards all. The conversation is reserved for the disciples. It is a catechesis about the core of Christian life, the love of mercy, the only possible love in a world of evil, the only force that is able to overcome it. The love of enemies is specific to and only of those who have known God in the Spirit of Jesus, the Son. This love extends to all men, and reveals the essence of God.
-->The love of the enemies is the same as that which we also received, while we were still following "that spirit which works in rebellious men", which had reduced us "by nature deserving of wrath, like others", "without hope and without God in this world" (Eph 2:2...). Indeed, just then, "God, rich in mercy, for the great love with which He loved us, from the dead we were for sins, made us relive with Christ, for grace, in fact, you were saved ...".. To be for others as God is for us. This is the model and the source of our acting with "grace" towards others. We too, being loved and accepted, can accept and love ourselves as we are; and so we can accept and love others as they are, without reserves. Man's desire is to become like God. The origin of all evil is also the desire that God fills with all good. After the revelation of His Face in Jesus, it is possible to understand the way to become like Him. "Be holy as I am holy" (Lev 19:2). Here we can see how Holiness, God's own specific, is Mercy. It is the theme of the whole Gospel of Luke, which is a continuous development through the facts and the sayings of the Lord. Only at the end of history will evil be taken away, when all its abyss is filled with mercy, just as water fills the sea. Poverty is to mercy as the well to water: the greater it is, the more it contains. Mercy is absolution in judgment, justification in condemnation, forgiveness in sin. Our giving Mercy is actually our own receiving it: for it we are incorporated into Jesus, the Son, and we enter into the never-ending circle of God's very Life. Already here on earth.
The Demand for a Radical Conversion The liberation and salvation brought by the kingdom of God come to the human person both in his physical and spiritual dimensions. There are Christians who think they can dispense with this unceasing spiritual effort, because they do not see the urgency of standing before the truth of the Gospel. Lest their way of life be upset, they seek to take words like “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk 6:27) and render them empty and innocuous. For these people, it is extremely difficult to accept such words and to translate them into consistent patterns of behaviour. They are in fact words which, if taken seriously, demand a radical conversion. On the other hand, when we are offended or hurt, we are tempted to succumb to the psychological impulses of self-pity and revenge, ignoring Jesus’ call to love our enemy. Yet the daily experiences of human life show very clearly how much forgiveness and reconciliation are indispensable if there is to be genuine renewal, both personal and social. This applies not only to interpersonal relationships, but also to relationships between communities and nations.
3. The many tragic conflicts which grievously wound humanity, some of them stirred by mistaken religious motives, have sown violence and hatred between peoples and even at times between groups and factions within the same nation. With a distressing sense of powerlessness, we sometimes see a revival of hostilities which we had thought were finally settled, and it seems that some peoples are caught in an unstoppable spiral of violence, which continues to claim victim after victim, without any real prospect of resolution. And hopes for peace, heard all around the world, come to nothing: for the commitment required to move towards the longed-for reconciliation fails to take hold.
Pope Benedict XVI April 19, 2005 – February 28, 2013
FEBRUARY 18, 2007 The Magna Carta of Christian Non-Violence In the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness. This Gospel passage is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian non-violence. It does not consist in succumbing to evil, as a false interpretation of “turning the other cheek” (cf. Lk 6: 29) claims, but in responding to evil with good (cf. Rom 12: 17-21) and thereby breaking the chain of injustice.
One then understands that for Christians, non-violence is not merely tactical behaviour but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.
Love of one’s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the “Christian revolution”, a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power: the revolution of love, a love that does not rely ultimately on human resources but is a gift of God which is obtained by trusting solely and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Here is the newness of the Gospel which silently changes the world! Here is the heroism of the “lowly” who believe in God’s love and spread it, even at the cost of their lives.
FEBRUARY 24, 2019 The Logic of Love This Sunday’s Gospel passage (cf. Lk 6:27-38) concerns a central point that characterizes Christian life: love for enemies. The logic of love, which culminates in Christ’s Cross, is a Christian’s badge and induces us to meet everyone with the heart of brothers and sisters. But how is it possible to overcome human instinct and the worldly law of retaliation? Jesus provides the answer in the same Gospel passage: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (v. 36). Those who hear Jesus, who make an effort to follow him even at a cost, become children of God, and begin to truly resemble the Father who is in heaven. We become capable of things we never thought we could say or do, and of which we would have been rather ashamed, but which now give us joy and peace instead. We no longer need to be violent, with words and gestures: we discover that we are capable of tenderness and goodness; and we sense that all of this comes not from ourselves but from him! And thus we do not brag about it but are grateful for it…
We must forgive because God has forgiven us and always forgives us. If we do not forgive completely, we cannot expect to be forgiven completely. However, if our hearts are open to mercy, if we seal forgiveness with a brotherly embrace and secure the bonds of communion, we proclaim to the world that it is possible to overcome evil with good. At times it is easier for us to remember the harm they have done to us and not the good things; to the point that there are people who have this habit and it becomes a sickness. They are “collectors of injustice”: they only remember the bad things done. And this is not a path. We must do the opposite, Jesus says. Remember the good things, and when someone comes with some gossip, and speaks ill of another, say: “Yes, perhaps … but he has this good quality…”. Turn the discussion around. This is the revolution of mercy.
Lectionary: 81
RispondiEliminaReading I
1 Sm 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
In those days, Saul went down to the desert of Ziph
with three thousand picked men of Israel,
to search for David in the desert of Ziph.
So David and Abishai went among Saul’s soldiers by night
and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade,
with his spear thrust into the ground at his head
and Abner and his men sleeping around him.
Abishai whispered to David:
“God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day.
Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear;
I will not need a second thrust!”
But David said to Abishai, “Do not harm him,
for who can lay hands on the LORD’s anointed and remain unpunished?”
So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul’s head,
and they got away without anyone’s seeing or knowing or awakening.
All remained asleep,
because the LORD had put them into a deep slumber.
Going across to an opposite slope,
David stood on a remote hilltop
at a great distance from Abner, son of Ner, and the troops.
He said: “Here is the king’s spear.
Let an attendant come over to get it.
The LORD will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness.
Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp,
I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.”
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13
R (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R The Lord is kind and merciful.
He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R The Lord is kind and merciful.
Merciful and gracious is the LORD,
slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
R The Lord is kind and merciful.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.
R The Lord is kind and merciful.
Reading II
1 Cor 15:45-49
Brothers and sisters:
It is written, The first man, Adam, became a living being,
the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
But the spiritual was not first;
rather the natural and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, earthly;
the second man, from heaven.
As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly,
and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.
Alleluia
RispondiEliminaJn 13:34
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I give you a new commandment, says the Lord:
love one another as I have loved you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Lk 6:27-38
Jesus said to his disciples:
“To you who hear I say,
love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you,
and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners,
and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give, and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
RispondiEliminaHere Jesus is not speaking in paradoxes or using nice turns of phrase. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is the Christian innovation. It is the Christian difference. Pray and love. The Lord demands of us the courage to have a love that does not count the cost. Because the measure of Jesus is love without measure. How many times have we neglected that demand, behaving like everyone else! Yet his commandment of love is not simply a challenge; it is the very heart of the Gospel. Do not worry about the malice of others, about those who think ill of you. Instead, begin to disarm your heart out of love for Jesus. For those who love God have no enemies in their hearts. The worship of God is contrary to the culture of hatred. (Homily, Pastoral visit to Bari, 23 February 2020)
FAUSTI - Behind every imperative one reads in watermark an indicative, which shows how God in Jesus loved me.They are strictly autobiographical words: He the first one to do what He said.
RispondiEliminaThis passage has the function of calling to mind how God loves me, so that I, recognizing myself as a pardoned sinner, may make this grace the source of my new life.
The passage then reveals who God is for me, who I am for Him and who I must be for others.
Jesus reveals to me the Face of a God who loves me while I am His enemy; He does to me good while I hate Him, He blesses me while I curse Him...as long as I am saved, He is ready to suffer every evil from me...He also gives me what I do not ask Him for and does not ask back what I have stolen from Him!
His Love for me has made him go down an infinite road!
He is all condescending towards my abyss.
In this Love of His towards me, He reveals to me who I am for Him: infinitely loved, even if his enemy, hater, slanderous, renegade, violent, stripper, petulant, indigent and thief.
Right to me, who are in this situation, He pours out His Love and gives me His grace with His Mercy. To know God in the Spirit is to experience and know God's Love for me as sinner, in Christ. This is Salvation.
What He has done for me becomes a commitment for me, so that I may be who I am.
The Face of Christ, the Son, is my true face. from 'homo homini lupus' I become 'homo homini Deus', like Him. This is my vocation as a son of God, to whom His Love calls and enables me. To the extent that I know His Face, I am transformed into His image, from glory to glory, according to the action of His Spirit (2 Cor 3:18).
In these words, then, I see on the one hand the story of God in Jesus, in His Love for me; on the other hand, the story of me and of everyone who, healed from enmity towards God, is called to heal from enmity towards all. The conversation is reserved for the disciples. It is a catechesis about the core of Christian life, the love of mercy, the only possible love in a world of evil, the only force that is able to overcome it.
The love of enemies is specific to and only of those who have known God in the Spirit of Jesus, the Son. This love extends to all men, and reveals the essence of God.
-->The love of the enemies is the same as that which we also received, while we were still following "that spirit which works in rebellious men", which had reduced us "by nature deserving of wrath, like others", "without hope and without God in this world" (Eph 2:2...). Indeed, just then, "God, rich in mercy, for the great love with which He loved us, from the dead we were for sins, made us relive with Christ, for grace, in fact, you were saved ..."..
RispondiEliminaTo be for others as God is for us. This is the model and the source of our acting with "grace" towards others. We too, being loved and accepted, can accept and love ourselves as we are; and so we can accept and love others as they are, without reserves.
Man's desire is to become like God. The origin of all evil is also the desire that God fills with all good. After the revelation of His Face in Jesus, it is possible to understand the way to become like Him. "Be holy as I am holy" (Lev 19:2). Here we can see how Holiness, God's own specific, is Mercy. It is the theme of the whole Gospel of Luke, which is a continuous development through the facts and the sayings of the Lord.
Only at the end of history will evil be taken away, when all its abyss is filled with mercy, just as water fills the sea. Poverty is to mercy as the well to water: the greater it is, the more it contains.
Mercy is absolution in judgment, justification in condemnation, forgiveness in sin.
Our giving Mercy is actually our own receiving it: for it we are incorporated into Jesus, the Son, and we enter into the never-ending circle of God's very Life. Already here on earth.
J. PAUL II
RispondiEliminaFEBRUARY 6, 200
LOVE IS NOT RESENTFUL
The Demand for a Radical Conversion
The liberation and salvation brought by the kingdom of God come to the human person both in his physical and spiritual dimensions.
There are Christians who think they can dispense with this unceasing spiritual effort, because they do not see the urgency of standing before the truth of the Gospel. Lest their way of life be upset, they seek to take words like “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Lk 6:27) and render them empty and innocuous. For these people, it is extremely difficult to accept such words and to translate them into consistent patterns of behaviour. They are in fact words which, if taken seriously, demand a radical conversion. On the other hand, when we are offended or hurt, we are tempted to succumb to the psychological impulses of self-pity and revenge, ignoring Jesus’ call to love our enemy. Yet the daily experiences of human life show very clearly how much forgiveness and reconciliation are indispensable if there is to be genuine renewal, both personal and social. This applies not only to interpersonal relationships, but also to relationships between communities and nations.
3. The many tragic conflicts which grievously wound humanity, some of them stirred by mistaken religious motives, have sown violence and hatred between peoples and even at times between groups and factions within the same nation. With a distressing sense of powerlessness, we sometimes see a revival of hostilities which we had thought were finally settled, and it seems that some peoples are caught in an unstoppable spiral of violence, which continues to claim victim after victim, without any real prospect of resolution. And hopes for peace, heard all around the world, come to nothing: for the commitment required to move towards the longed-for reconciliation fails to take hold.
Pope Benedict XVI
RispondiEliminaApril 19, 2005 – February 28, 2013
FEBRUARY 18, 2007
The Magna Carta of
Christian Non-Violence
In the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness.
This Gospel passage is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian non-violence. It does not consist in succumbing to evil, as a false interpretation of “turning the other cheek” (cf. Lk 6: 29) claims, but in responding to evil with good (cf. Rom 12: 17-21) and thereby breaking the chain of injustice.
One then understands that for Christians, non-violence is not merely tactical behaviour but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.
Love of one’s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the “Christian revolution”, a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power: the revolution of love, a love that does not rely ultimately on human resources but is a gift of God which is obtained by trusting solely and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Here is the newness of the Gospel which silently changes the world! Here is the heroism of the “lowly” who believe in God’s love and spread it, even at the cost of their lives.
Pope Francis
RispondiEliminaMarch 13, 2013 – Present
FEBRUARY 24, 2019
The Logic of Love
This Sunday’s Gospel passage (cf. Lk 6:27-38) concerns a central point that characterizes Christian life: love for enemies.
The logic of love, which culminates in Christ’s Cross, is a Christian’s badge and induces us to meet everyone with the heart of brothers and sisters. But how is it possible to overcome human instinct and the worldly law of retaliation? Jesus provides the answer in the same Gospel passage: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (v. 36). Those who hear Jesus, who make an effort to follow him even at a cost, become children of God, and begin to truly resemble the Father who is in heaven. We become capable of things we never thought we could say or do, and of which we would have been rather ashamed, but which now give us joy and peace instead. We no longer need to be violent, with words and gestures: we discover that we are capable of tenderness and goodness; and we sense that all of this comes not from ourselves but from him! And thus we do not brag about it but are grateful for it…
We must forgive because God has forgiven us and always forgives us. If we do not forgive completely, we cannot expect to be forgiven completely. However, if our hearts are open to mercy, if we seal forgiveness with a brotherly embrace and secure the bonds of communion, we proclaim to the world that it is possible to overcome evil with good. At times it is easier for us to remember the harm they have done to us and not the good things; to the point that there are people who have this habit and it becomes a sickness. They are “collectors of injustice”: they only remember the bad things done. And this is not a path. We must do the opposite, Jesus says. Remember the good things, and when someone comes with some gossip, and speaks ill of another, say: “Yes, perhaps … but he has this good quality…”. Turn the discussion around. This is the revolution of mercy.