From the responsorial psalm: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 5:43-48)
Jesus said to his disciples: “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.”
Jesus tells the disciples what would have been very familiar to them according to social conventions of the time (as it is today in many ways): “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.” Doing this, Jesus tells them, will make them and us children of our heavenly Father. It is God, not us, who “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Another way to put it, leave judgment to God and instead love your enemies in imitation of the Father, who is perfect. How we actually accomplish the “So be perfect” part, Jesus tells us, is by asking for help from the one who loved us first as we pray for those who persecute us.
Father in heaven, perfect in me the love you first gave and which I fail to hold and share perfectly. Help me realize my complete dependence on you as the source of love, with which Jesus commands that we love one another, our enemies, and those who persecute us. “I can’t,” I tell myself, “love my enemies.” Or I try to love my enemies but struggle because I don’t like the way they are. Give me the grace to receive the love of Christ to give away to others and let it overshadow the weaknesses I have in expressing your gift of love. Let the Gospel acclamation come to my aid when I need to remember the source of all love: “I give you a new commandment; love one another as I have loved you.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.