[Salvation]

Can Anyone Tell if I am a Believer?

Pastor’s Column

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

February 23, 2014

 

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? From Matthew 5:38-48

 

The demands that Jesus makes in this gospel certainly seem radical. Here, Jesus seems to be saying things such as if someone sues you, give them twice as much as they ask. If someone wants to borrow your coat, give them a shirt as well. How do we live this in real terms? Jesus is simply stating a great truth of our faith: there is no setback that God cannot work to good, nothing we have given up for him that will not be repaid. If the Lord is our friend and our salvation, what can anyone really do to us? A good way to look at this might be, "Is there anything about my life that is different than the way others around me live? What is it about my life that makes me a Christian? Can you tell?” One of my favorite illustrations of this passage is a story St. Therese of Lisieux relates in her splendid autobiography, The Story of a Soul. Monks and nuns regularly gather for recreation; this is time they are required to spend together as a community, and also at meals. Well, even religious usually would prefer to speak and sit with people they like! But what I always find remarkable is that St. Therese would regularly sit down with that nun who was cranky, or the one who would criticize her behind her back, or the one that no one could please, the nun everyone else avoided. Now that is real sanctity!

God rarely offers us opportunities to do great things for him or others. A life of faith usually consists of small sacrifices done well, using wisely the circumstances and people we find ourselves in or with daily. Let's turn this around for a moment. What if Jesus had said something like this: If you are coming to coffee and donuts after Mass, and the only people you say hello to are people you know and like, what possible merit is there in that? Even pagans greet their friends!

But what does radical Christianity call for? Can I greet the stranger I see coming to Mass here, or the person I don’t know at coffee and donuts? Now that's real Christianity! It seems very mundane, but things like this are often where God wishes us to make a difference in the lives of others.

Father Gary

[Salvation]

Reflections from Scott Hahn

Holy as God: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted by Dr. Scott Hahn on 02.21.14 |

Leviticus 19:1–2, 17–18
Psalm 103:1–4, 8, 10, 12–13
1 Corinthians 3:16–23
Matthew 5:38–48

We are called to the holiness of God. That is the extraordinary claim made in both the First Reading and Gospel this Sunday.

Yet how is it possible that we can be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect?

Jesus explains that we must be imitators of God as his beloved children (Eph. 5:1–2).

As God does, we must love without limit—with a love that does not distinguish between friend and foe, overcoming evil with good (see Rom. 12:21).

Jesus himself, in his Passion and death, gave us the perfect example of the love that we are called to.

He offered no resistance to the evil—even though he could have commanded twelve legions of angels to fight alongside him. He offered his face to be struck and spit upon. He allowed his garments to be stripped from him. He marched as his enemies compelled him to the Place of the Skull. On the cross he prayed for those who persecuted him (see Matt. 26:53–54, 67; 27:28, 32; Luke 23:34).

In all this he showed himself to be the perfect Son of God. By his grace, and through our imitation of him, he promises that we too can become children of our heavenly Father.

God does not deal with us as we deserve, as we sing in this week’s Psalm. He loves us with a Father’s love. He saves us from ruin. He forgives our transgressions.

He loved us even when we had made ourselves his enemies through our sinfulness. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (see Rom. 5:8).

We have been bought with the price of the blood of God’s only Son (see 1 Cor. 6:20). We belong to Christ now, as St. Paul says in this week’s Epistle. By our baptism, we have been made temples of his Holy Spirit.

And we have been saved to share in his holiness and perfection. So let us glorify him by our lives lived in his service, loving as he loves.