Tuesday in the 11th Week of Ordinary Time, June 17, 2025

Matthew 5, 43-48

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 and sisters only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”  The love of enemies starkly illuminates the difference between Christianity and every other religion.  And the Lord Jesus can command such a thing because he provides the means by which it can be accomplished — the only means, which is grace.  Now, we become adopted children of the Father through the grace of baptism.  But it is necessary for us not only to become but to make progress in our growth as his children through imitating him.  Through prayer we receive further graces to imitate him.  This grace comes to us along with the experience of God’s love, for which we must also pray.  We love others, even those who act against us, knowing the love of God and knowing he loves these others.  We love them for his sake.  This love is acted upon when we pray for others, especially for their conversion.  It may also require us to say no to someone, for sometimes the most loving act we can perform is to say no.  This includes the action of defending ourselves: we do so out of love of self, which God commands us to do; but also to prevent a person from committing a worse sin than attacking by wounding or killing us.

“For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?”  It is good that we love those who love us, but “the tax collectors do the same.”  That is, we will no more receive a reward for this action than the wicked will.  “And if you greet your brothers and sisters only, what is unusual about that?”  The Lord tells us in these words that it is indeed unusual for someone to love his enemies, but we must remember that we are supposed to act in unusual ways as Christians, following the law of love and not the allurements of self-indulgence, as most people do.  “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Now, in this context, the Lord is speaking about having perfect love.  We can love perfectly according to our human ability, just as the Father loves perfectly according to his infinite divinity.  To do this, we need to pray for grace that we might know God’s love for us.  Knowing his love, unworthy of it though we are, will enable us to love with the love with which we are loved.  The fullest example of this is the Son’s love for us.  We also have before us the examples of the saints who gave up everything this world values in to serve the poor, the lepers, prisoners in the galleys, newly arrived slaves, and those who sacrificed their lives to save a stranger.  This perfect love will grow our capacity to experience the love of God.  As we love so shall we know love.  And we shall know the fullness of God’s love in heaven as we look upon him.