Reading 1 – Acts 7: 55-60

Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them;”
and when he said this, he fell asleep.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 97: 1-2, 6-7, 9

1. The Lord is king, the most high over all the earth – Alleluia.
   The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice;
   let the many islands be glad.
   Justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.
2. The Lord is king, the most high over all the earth – Alleluia.
   The heavens proclaim his justice,
   and all peoples see his glory.
   All gods are prostrate before him.
3. The Lord is king, the most high over all the earth – Alleluia.
   You, O LORD, are the Most High over all the earth,
   exalted far above all gods.
4. The Lord is king, the most high over all the earth – Alleluia.

Reading 2 – Revelations 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20

I, John, heard a voice saying to me:
“Behold, I am coming soon.
I bring with me the recompense I will give to each
according to his deeds.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end.”

Blessed are they who wash their robes
so as to have the right to the tree of life
and enter the city through its gates.

“I, Jesus, sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches.
I am the root and offspring of David,
the bright morning star.”

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
Let the hearer say, “Come.”
Let the one who thirsts come forward,
and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.

The one who gives this testimony says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

 

Gospel – John 17: 20-26

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“Holy Father, I pray not only for them,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,
but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them.”

 

Listen to the Scriptures:  click on the link below:

http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/16_05_08.mp3

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time – C

 NOTHING IS GAINED THROUGH VIOLENCE AND REVENGE.  In private, public, and international life, a faithful application of Jesus’ words on meekness and love of enemies could change the world for the better.  We are the ones to star the revolution of love.  Meekness and forgiveness are always better than violence and revenge – even in the struggle of daily life.

 

The law of tit for tat seems to be so deeply ingrained in us that we do not realize it is a sad carry-over from pagan times.  Someone shoves us, we shove back; someone insults us, we insult them; someone cheats us we cheat them.  And so the mad cycle of offense and revenge escalates to end in personal wars, divorces, social conflicts and national disasters.  Even our gifts follow the same pattern: I invite you, you invite me; you send me a Christmas card, I must send you one!

 

Point 1: Tit-for-tat, revenge, getting even, is the way of death.  Some of the most dreadful examples of revenge occur in times of national violence:  during World War II, the Germans destroyed Coventry and the heart of London; the Allies retaliated by destroying Hamburg and Dresden in Germany.  When we look at this in retrospective and wonder what result was obtained, the answer is: nothing but death and suffering for innocent victims.  The conflict in Ireland, between Catholics and Protestants – both supposedly Christian – remains unresolved precisely because both sides insist on death for death, bomb for bomb.  We have Israel and the Palestinians.  Quarrels may be made to last from generation to generation when both sides insist on their right to inflict upon an opponent the same damage they suffer from him.  The balance is often upset: each side tries to inflict more damage than it receives, so that conflict may expand from insults to blows, from threat to execution, from quarrel to crime.

Point 2: David astounded his contemporaries because he did not take revenge.  King Saul was definitely seeking David’s death: he went to the desert of Ziph with three thousand picked men of Israel to search for him.  But it so happened that David and his companion Abishai managed to enter the King’s tent at night while he was asleep.  Abishai followed his destructive instinct, and the moral principles of his time that said that an enemy was to be destroyed.  He whispered to David: “Let me nail him to the ground with his own spear!”  But David refused to harm him: he only took the king’s spear and his water-jug, as proof that he had had the king at his mercy.  Abishai undoubtedly took him for a fool!

 

Point 3: David was a prefiguration of Christ.  In spite of his imperfect humanity and sinfulness, David was in many ways a prefiguration of Christ: as prophet, king, anointed one, and here, as a promoter of a higher morality, of a spirit of forgiveness and meekness that antedates by many hundred years the saying of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek.”  The theme of non-violence is found more than once in the Gospels.  Jesus rebuked Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Put back your sword where it belongs.  Those who use the sword are sooner or later destroyed by it.”  He counseled people to love their enemies, as we have heard in today’s gospel, according to Luke.  Matthew at the end of the Sermon on the Mount takes up the same theme.

 

Conclusion: Almost all human conflicts can be escalated by a spirit of vengeance and solved by a spirit of forgiveness.  Perhaps it is too much to expect world governments to apply the beatitudes in the relations between nations, but governments are made of individual men, each one of whom would be able to start a revolution of love such as the world has not yet seen.  And even if they don’t, it is up to you to do it.

 

QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFLECTION / DISCUSSION

1. When was the last time you made a witty, cutting and insulting remark to someone who annoyed you?

2. How many little “wars” have you started in defending your own rights, opinions or ideas?

3. How could you best promote non-violence in your present situation?

4. Do you encourage friends or others to strike back when they are hurts by others?

5. Do you ever try complete meekness in the face of an unjust assault, criticism or insult from friends, family or even “enemies”?

 

There is no commandment of Jesus which has caused so much discussion and debate as the commandment to love our enemies.  Before we can obey it we must discover what it means.  In Greek there are three words for to love.  There is eran, which describes passionate love, the love of a man for a maid.  There is philein, which describes our love for our nearest and dearest, the warm affection of the heart.  Neither of these two words is used here; the word used here is agapan, which needs a whole paragraph to translate it.

Agapan describes an active feeling of benevolence towards the other person; it means that no matter what that person does to us we will never allow ourselves to desire anything but his highest good; and we will deliberately and of set purpose go out of our way to be good and kind to him.  This is most suggestive.  We cannot love our enemies as we love our nearest and dearest (our own family or our friends).  To do so would be unnatural, impossible and even wrong.  But we can see to it that, no matter what a man does to us, even if he insults, ill-treats and injures us, we will seek nothing but his highest good.

 

One thing emerges from this.  The love we bear to our dear ones is something we cannot help.  We speak of falling in love; it is something which happens to us.  But this love towards our enemies is not only something of the heart; it is something of the will.  It is something which by the grace of Christ we may will ourselves to do.

 

This passage has in it two great facts about the Christian ethic:

 

1. The Christian ethic is positive. It does not consist in not doing things but in doing them.  Jesus gave us the Golden Rule which bids us do to others as we would have them do to us.  That rule exists in many writers of many creeds in its negative form.  Hillel, one of the great Jewish Rabbis, was asked by a man to teach him the whole law while he stood on one leg.  He answered, “What is hateful to thee, do not to another.  That is the whole law and all else is explanation.”  Philo, the great Jew of Alexandria, said, “What you hate to suffer, do not do to anyone else.” Isocrates, the Greek orator, said.  “What things make you angry when you suffer them at the hands of others, do not you do to other people.”  The Stoics had as one of their basic rules, “What you do not wish to be done to yourself, do not you do to any other.”  When Confucius was asked, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” he answered, “Is not Reciprocity such a word?  What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

 

Every one of these forms is negative.  It is not unduly difficult to keep yourself from such action; but it is a very different thing to go out of your way to do to others what you would want them to do to you.  The very essence of Christian conduct is that it consists, not in refraining from bad things, but in actively doing good things.

 

2. The Christian ethic is based on the extra thing. Jesus described the common ways of sensible conduct and then dismissed them with the question, “What special grace is in that?”  So often people claim to be just as good as their neighbours. Very likely they are.  But the question of Jesus is, “How much better are you than the ordinary person?”  It is not our neighbour with whom we must compare ourselves; we may well stand that comparison very adequately; it is God with whom we must compare ourselves; and in that comparison we are all in default.

 

3. What is the reason for this Christian conduct? The reason is that it makes us like God, for that is the way he acts. God sends his rain on the just and the unjust.  He is kind to the man who brings him joy and equally kind to the man who grieves his heart.  God’s love embraces saint and sinner alike.  It is that love we must copy; if we, too, seek even our enemy’s highest good we will in truth be the children of God.

 

QUESTION

 Have you ever loved in this way? (See Agapan above)  If yes, can you recall the incident?  Share it?

Prayer of the faithful – 7^th Sunday of Easter – 8^th May 2016

For the Church: that we may continually grow in our knowledge and love of God, let us pray to the Lord.

For Christian Unity: that all Christians may strive to be one in Christ, one in truth, and one in compassion, let us pray to the Lord.

For the grace of surrender to God: that we may have the strength to surrender all to God and allow God to bring us through times of persecution and rejection, let us pray to the Lord.

For true perspective about life: that we may see our life in the larger context of God’s call and plan so that we may be open to respond to all that God asks, let us pray to the Lord.

For healing in the human family: that through our gathering of women and men, rich and poor, powerful and marginalized, we may be an instrument of unity for the whole human family, let us pray to the Lord.

For all victims of violence, particularly Christians in the Middle East: that God will heal their pain, ease their fear, and give them courage to be living witnesses to the Gospel, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who have injured us, whether by word, deed, or betrayal: that the Spirit of Christ will help us to forgive them and pray for their deepest needs, let us pray to the Lord.

For those who long for meaning and purpose in life: that they may come to the waters of life and be nourished by the Eternal Word, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who serve as deacons: that God inspire their ministry and help them to faithfully serve without counting the cost, let us pray to the Lord.

For families that are divided: that God will heal the wounds of hurt and infidelity and help family members to realize the gift that they are to one another, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are ill: that God will heal bodies, minds, and spirits so that all may live and celebrate God’s gift of life, let us pray to the Lord.

For peace: that God will gift the human family with new cooperation and understanding so that all people may live in peace, let us pray to the Lord.

For safety: that God will protect all the human family from terrorism particularly children and the elderly, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who await the coming of the Lord, particularly those with terminal illness: that God will sustain them and lead them to freedom and the fullness of life, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who are recovering from storms, floods, and tornadoes: that God will ease their suffering, renew their spirits, and help the hearts of many to be moved to assist them, let us pray to the Lord.

For government leaders: that God will inspire them with courage and new understanding as they strive to establish new immigration procedures, let us pray to the Lord.

For all Mothers and those who have been like a mother to us: that God will bless and strengthen them and inspire us to great love by their witness of their love and concern, let us pray to the Lord.