Love our enemies

Homily for Tuesday June 16, 2026

1Kings21:17-29, Ps.51, Mt.5:43-38

Love our enemies

Loving our enemies is the most scandalous and meaningful act as a Christian. This act goes against human nature. This act relies on divine help. This act demonstrates two of the seven Spiritual Acts of Mercy. Bearing wrongs patiently and forgiving wrongs willingly. I can honestly say that I have been given the blessing and grace for the need to practice these Acts of Mercy. I have to believe we all have been blessed with the graced moment where our enemies have hurt us. Thank God for those moments for they offer the opportunity to share love in the face of hatred. The first time a spiritual director told me that God surely graced me with bring love in places of hate I thought he was insane. I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted him to change his words. I’m a slow learner. It took awhile. Eventually by God’s grace it got through my thick skull.

What profit would there be to gain the whole world but lose our soul?

Again

What profit would there be to gain the whole world but lose our soul?

Are we truly living for this life or the next? We can bicker, fight, and manipulate everything in our life to accumulate things of this life. Isn’t that what usually causes our enemies? Fighting over something of treasure in this life alone. For what? Pride, power, self esteem, ego, short term fulfillment, dopamine…? How short sighted. Exactly what our first reading was about. Short term conquests sacrificing at the price of a soul. Is this really what we want?

The next time we feel that anger and frustration of being hated, go to the cross. Sit silently in the church, gaze up at Jesus, thank Him for all that He did, tell Him how you feel a little sliver of what He felt. Of what He still feels. So many reject and hate Him. We are blessed to be in His company. In living for the next life, pray for your enemy, let them have what they pursue, pursue love. Live for the next life. Bear wrongs patiently. Forgive wrongs willingly. Do not squabble over things of this life. Aim higher. Aim to love at all times, in all conditions, even in rejection.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.