May the Lord give you peace, health and happiness in the Holy Spirit.
It is 18th June 2024.
We reflect on 1 Kings 21:17-29 and Matthew 5:43-48.
Are we tired of being perfect and doing good?
Only in loving and forgiving, we can resemble God. Love is not contained within the comfortable people.
Bringing out another-Christ is the perfection and purpose of being a Christian.
In a company, there was a bulletin circulated with the heading: “to err is human; to forgive is not company policy.”
Some of us have taken this company policy serious and made it our own.
How many people have we condemned and suppressed in our unconscious state and repressed them unforgivingly?
How many times do we wish our enemies dead?
Human perfection cannot be attained with an unforgiving heart.
Loving and forgiving the undeserved offers integrity and perfection. Forgiveness is not a commercial break in our life’s movie.
Being silent does not mean surrendering.
Untimely silence escalates violence and hatred.
It is not easy for us to forgive the ones who have inflicted pain without the help of God and our faith in Jesus.
Capacity to love is verified in the courageous acts of forgiveness.
In the first reading, we are reminded that the Justice of God could have done away with king Ahab but in God’s mercy God forgave him.
The abuse of power never goes unnoticed and unpunished by God.
The responsorial Psalm intercedes, “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.” (Ps.51:3)
In the Gospel, by quoting Lev.19:18, “love your neighbour,” Jesus wants the disciples to go outside the comfort circles.
Love is not contained to one’s own kind, kith and kin.
Jesus challenges us with a new standard for discipleship: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt.5:44).
Is Christ asking too much from us?
The enemy here means the one who persecutes the faithful and so it is not a personal enemy but opponent of God.
Jesus desires to experience the relational redemptivenes that seeks the best for the other.
Jesus suggests actions that benefit the other by greeting, praying and doing good.
It is a spiritual endeavour to imitate God who treats honest and dishonest justly.
The call of Jesus to emulate the perfection of the Father-God is the call to completeness.
If we have reached the level of loving our enemies, who else is left to love?
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt.5:48).
Jesus presents us with the optimistic and inclusive love of the Father.
By constantly aspiring for the ideal, we might end up being real.
To be perfect is to be the best of ourselves without competing with the other.
Bringing the original plan and untainted image of humanity to be shared with the bruised and broken humanity around us is allowing us to become perfect.
Perfect means wholeness, maturity, holiness and fulfilment. Luke uses mercy instead of perfection.
Being perfect is not a single stroke of achievement rather it’s an on-going lifelong effort reaching the ideal and the dream God has implanted in each one us.
Our education, titles, status in society cannot provide us with the recipe for perfection.
Being perfect does involve in gathering the pieces of imperfection in others. Perfection begins with loving and completes in forgiving.
Agape with its sharing, intimacy, affection and a mutual giving is the ideal response during the times when we become the object of hostility and hatred for no reason of our own.
Some people do not like us, and we do not know their reasons. We do not like some people for reasons we hold.
Reaching out to them is the perfect response that culminates in praying for the other.
Perfect person who has completed one’s life purpose.
The example of the unconditional agape of God, the Father is the ideal to be emulated in loving and forgiving others.
“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” (Gal.6:9). Have a perfectly peaceful day. God bless you.