Love Your Enemies

The weather today was predicted to be quite bad - "Wind warning in effect. Blowing snow advisory in effect. Wind southwest 60 km/h gusting to 110. High 9 with temperature falling to plus 1 this afternoon... Tonight...Flurries at times heavy. Local amount 2 to 4 cm...Wind chill minus 10 in the evening and minus 18(!) overnight." Ouch!!!

That’s why we went to church last night! Father Ian was particularly on fire! He read from the Gospel passage Luke 6:27-38 which has the main theme of “Love your Enemies”. He told us this is perhaps one of Jesus’ hardest sayings and He meant what he said! Although “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.”(vss 27-30) is so against our fallen nature, Jesus will not ask us to do something we can not do. He promises grace through His sacraments. We are to be patient with ourselves as we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us to enable us to accomplish what seems impossible. We may not be able to accomplish this in this short life time but we will see evidence of transformation. First we must acknowledge that this is Jesus best intention for us and submit to His authority. We then ask the Spirit to speak to our heart each time we encounter our enemy. Whenever we do our Examination of Conscience we will be quick to discover our deficiencies. We then go to confession and repent of our sins and ask God to give us the grace we need to change. God intends to recreate us following His divine nature. I so look forward to this... when His work in me is done! May His Name be praised!

Father Ian then pointed out in the Old Testament passage we also read today (1 Samuel 26:2-23) where King David demonstrated what loving your enemy looked like.


Finally, this is a wonderful homily from Father Jordan Schmidt on the same passage:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/jesus-means-what-he-says
What I appreciate the most is his explanation of the New Testament passage we also read today 
(1 Corinthians 15:45-49 - this link combines both the English and Greek versions): "Paul again uses the word eikōn to explain that we resemble our spiritual origin just as we resemble our earthly one: “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one” (vs 49). In other words, by taking on flesh and becoming like us, Jesus Christ enables us to become like him. Indeed, the salvific life of grace transforms us into a new creation — a new image of our heavenly origin — and when we are so transformed, we are able to imitate Jesus Christ by complying with his commands to love our enemies and pray for them. "

AMEN!!!