The Good Word

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Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time.Our reading today is taken from the holy gospel according to Matthew.Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."The gospel of the Lord.Homily“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." Did Jesus really say those words ... to me? My heart cries out: “I can’t; I’m not Jesus Christ.” And my heart is right, if I expect to try to be perfect in spite of my own human weakness and limitations. But Jesus is asking me and you to open our hearts to him and allow the power and grace of his Spirit to shore up our human weakness and limitations. That is the only way we can fulfill Jesus’ great commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” What does it mean to love God with every fiber of our being? It means to orient our lives, not according to our personal needs, but according to God’s love and mercy. It means treating every person we meet with dignity and respect. Jesus explains this love of God for everyone with an image: “he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” God’s perfection is in treating everyone equally, without our human distinctions.We have a hard time doing that even with people we have just met and especially with people with whom we may have had difficulty. But Jesus does not let up on his demands and tells his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.”Here is where some people just give up. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me: Father, I cannot forgive, I cannot love my enemies; I am not Jesus Christ. And yet, we are like Jesus Christ; he calls us children of our heavenly Father, and children learn to be like their parents. We look to God in all our needs, because God is almighty, and Jesus is our savior. We confidently ask for so many blessings for ourselves, our families and our friends. We also need to ask God for the difficult graces, to forgive, to love the unloving, to enter more deeply into the spirit and life of Jesus.There are times I manage to summon the courage to make this prayer, but always with trepidation. I know that to share in the glory of Jesus’ resurrection, I have to first share in his passion. There is a cost we must pay when we truly try follow Jesus. That cost is our very selves. Loving those who love us and being on good terms with those who agree with us is easy, Jesus tells us. Pagans and sinners can do that. But to love one’s enemies and pray for one’s persecutors, that is a special grace that Jesus freely bestows on those who truly ask to follow him. Humanly speaking, this should be impossible, but Jesus reveals God’s love for us and makes us children of God in the Spirit, so we can love God above all things and our neighbor as our self – even our enemies.May God bless you.Rev. Karl E. Esker CSsRBasilica of our Lady of Perpetual HelpBrooklyn, NY

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“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!” This single sentence is the creed of Judaism. It comes from Deuteronomy 6:4. It is also the beginning of the Shema prayer. Shema comes from the Hebrew imperative of the verb to hear, which is the first word of Dt. 6:4. It is also the verse that begins every synagogue service. It is a declaration that God is the only God, which is the foundation of Jewish monotheism.Deuteronomy 6 also states that the Shema prayer be worn in phylacteries, or little boxes, on wrists and foreheads. The Shema is also contained in a small box called a Mezuzah, which was - and still is - affixed to the doors of a Jewish household as well as the doors to synagogues. As a Jewish believer touches the small box on the door, they are reminded that God is with them in their going out and coming in. Every devout Jew would agree with Jesus that this is the first commandment. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is a quotation from Leviticus 19:18. “Your neighbor,” in the original meaning from Leviticus, applied only to people of the Jewish faith. Jesus expands the meaning to include all people. While in ancient times, it would be permissible to hate a non-believing Gentile, Jesus takes the old law and gives it new meaning. Christians are called to love without any limiting boundaries. Another new thing that Jesus did was put these two commandments together. True religion for Jesus was to love God and love humanity. And loving humanity is not a misty platitude; it is to be lived out in humble service to the people we meet everyday. The only way we can prove that we love God is by loving the people around us. Jesus’ new teaching is clearly evident in the Good Samaritan parable. The levite and the priest pass by the wounded stranger on the road because they prioritized ritual worship over compassion. Both men were in a hurry to perform their duties in the temple. When the scribe in today’s Gospel understands the connection between these commandments correctly, he is complimented by Jesus. The scribe has discerned that to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength leads directly into service of our brothers and sisters. Perhaps two quotes from Mother Teresa can best sum up Jesus’ teaching on the Shema: 1) “Prayer in action is love, love in action is service.” And, 2) “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” Blessings,Fr. Kevin MacDonald, C.Ss.R.

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