Homily – The 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]

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The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Zechariah 9:9-10  +  Romans 8:9,11-13  +  Matthew 11:25-30

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

There are three ways in which the Lord Jesus wants to give us rest.  Each of these three types of rest corresponds to a certain type of labor and burden.

First off, there are those who labor and are burdened like Martha in the famous Gospel passage about Jesus visiting the home of the sisters Martha and Mary.  Do you remember this story?  When Jesus arrives, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, listening attentively to His every word.

When Martha sees this, she complains, since Martha is tending to the practical matters of hospitality.  We might have sympathy for Martha and her complaints, because—as we all know—practical matters have to be tended to.  The dining room table does not set itself.  After all, it’s not like Martha was off watching cat videos on YouTube while Jesus spoke to Mary.

Nonetheless, Jesus does criticize Martha, and at the same time commends Mary for choosing what He calls “the better part”.  As is often the case with Sacred Scripture, we have to engage in some measure of speculation.  If we’re tempted to feel sympathy for Martha when Jesus criticizes Martha, we need to remember that on this occasion, as in all things, Jesus knows more about the situation than we do.

We might imagine, for example, that perhaps the sisters Martha and Mary had decided to split the preparations for Jesus’ visit 50/50.  But Mary did her share of the preparations in the morning, while Martha misspent her time that morning (sort of like the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom:  only five kept their lamps lit).  So Mary was ready to receive Jesus when He arrived.  But at that point, Martha’s preparations had to be done while ignoring the presence of Jesus in her home.

Every one of us has labors in this world, but we don’t always tend to them in a prudent manner.  Sometimes we even take unnecessary labors upon our shoulders.  Those unnecessary labors, as well as the necessary labors that we don’t tend to prudently, make us like Martha:  we are not ready to receive the Lord when He wants to enter under our roof to give us a measure of rest.

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The second type of labor, and the second type of rest, are very different from the first.  The first type of labor and rest has to do with stopping our worldly activity in order to enter into the presence of the Lord in prayer.  However, once we do enter into prayer, there’s a different challenge that we face.

You know, that famous Gospel passage about Jesus visiting the home of Martha and Mary:  it ends with Jesus’ criticism of Martha, and His commendation of Mary for choosing “the better part”.  The passage does not continue.  We never learn how Martha responded to Jesus’ criticism.  Did she complain to Jesus that His criticism was unfair?  Or did she humbly accept Jesus’ criticism and join Mary, sitting at the Lord’s feet?  We’re not told.

However, imagine what that would have looked like as Martha and Mary sat at the feet of Jesus.  It’s easy to imagine that Martha, sitting at the feet of Jesus, would have continually interrupted Jesus.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they….”  “Jesus, would you send your grace upon my nephew?  He’s having trouble finding work.”  “Why yes, Martha, I’d be happy to bless your nephew.  Blessed are the pure of heart, for they….”  “Oh, Jesus, would you send some grace upon my left knee?  It’s been acting up again.”  “Certainly, Martha, I’d be happy to bless your left knee.  Blessed are the silent, for they shall hear the Word of God.”

The point is that being in the presence of Jesus is not enough.  We also have to be present to Jesus:  that is, listening for Him to speak to us.  It’s not enough to rest from worldly labors to sit at His feet.  We also have to rest from talking at Jesus, and instead listen for Him to speak.

That’s not to say that there’s no place in prayer for speaking to Jesus.  That’s why we teach our children and grandchildren the Church’s treasury of prayers, beginning with the Sign of the Cross, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.  The older that our children and grandchildren get, the more prayers we teach them, so that they have committed to memory a wealth of prayers to call on.  This type of prayer, along with prayers that we voice to God spontaneously from our heart in our own words, is called “vocal prayer”.  In the life of every Christian, these vocal prayers are the start of prayer.  But they’re not the end goal.

There’s a second stage to prayer, which follows and builds upon vocal prayer.  It’s simply called meditation.  Meditation consists of using one’s imagination and reason to reflect upon the Mysteries of our Faith, such as are stated in the Creed that we profess each Sunday.  For example, in the prayer of meditation, a Christian might picture the scene of the Agony in the Garden.  Or the Christian might ponder what it means for Jesus Christ to be both, at the same time, fully God and fully man.

This second stage of prayer—the prayer of meditation—is important for the Christian to cultivate.  So is the first stage of vocal prayer.  However, the first stage and the second stage are designed to lead to the third stage of prayer:  the best part of prayer, where instead of speaking to God, one listens for God, resting in His Presence.

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So the first type of labor is our labor in the world.  Jesus calls us on occasion from this labor to rest in His Presence in prayer.  But part of prayer is itself a labor:  the work of vocal prayer and meditation.  After the labor of talking to Jesus in prayer, we need to rest more deeply in His Presence by listening for Him to speak.

Even deeper is the third type of rest to which Jesus calls us:  that is, eternal rest.  Life on earth, as we hear in the Book of Ecclesiastes, is full of toil and labor.  We don’t know how many days we will have on this earth to labor for the Lord.

Fr. Reinhard Eck, the long-time pastor of St. Joseph’s in Andale, fostered a beautiful custom at parish funerals.  Following the funeral Mass, a procession would make its way to the cemetery.  While the procession continued towards the gravesite, Father Eck would offer many prayers.  One of these prayers he would preface by saying, “For the person among us who will be the next to die.  Hail Mary, full of grace….”

You could always tell who were visitors to the parish, because the look on their faces told you that they were taken aback by these words.  They thought that the funeral services were all about the death of the dearly departed, not about their own death.

But living out our Catholic Faith on this earth is all about preparing for the hour of our death.  Whether we lived the Faith while on earth has everything to do with whether we will—on the other side of the doorway of death—experience eternal rest:  the end goal of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage.  That’s why at the end of the graveside service, the Church prays three times for this lasting rest:

“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.”

“And let perpetual light shine upon her.”

“May she rest in peace.”

“May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.”

Homily for the Sacrament of Baptism

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Many Catholics are not aware that the Church considers certain persons from the pages of the Old Testament to be saints.  Each of these saints has a feast day, although sadly, these feast days for some reason are not celebrated at Holy Mass.

Nonetheless, these saints and their feast days are included in one of the Church’s liturgical books, titled the Roman Martyrology.  In the pages of this book, we read that the feast of Saint Jeremiah is May 1st.  His entry in the Roman Martyrology reads as follows:

Commemoration of Saint Jeremiah, prophet, who, in the time of Joiakim and Zedekiah, kings of Judah, foretelling the destruction of the Holy City and the deportation of the people, suffered many persecutions; for this reason the Church saw in him the figure of the suffering Christ.  He also foretold the fulfilment of the new and everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, by which the almighty Father would write his law in the depths of the hearts of the children of Israel, so that he would be their God and they would be his people.

The conclusion of this entry is an allusion to a verse from one of the two Old Testament books that St. Jeremiah wrote.  We hear in the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 31, Verse 33:  “… this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

That covenant that Jeremiah prophesied about was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when Christ’s Church was born.  That’s the Church which, in a few minutes, Jeremiah will enter through the Sacrament of Baptism.

Every member of Christ’s Church bears a share in the Church’s three-fold mission, continuing Christ’s work on earth.  Every member of the Church is responsible for carrying out, in his or her day and age, the mission of the priest, the mission of the prophet, and the mission of the shepherd king.

Today, the newly baptized Jeremiah will take upon himself the mission of being a priest, who like Jesus and through the grace of Jesus, offers self-sacrifice each day.  Today Jeremiah will take on the mission of being a prophet—like his patron saint—who in charity speaks the truth in season and out of season, when convenient and when inconvenient.  And today Jeremiah will take on the mission of the shepherd king, growing each day—we pray—in wisdom and grace3 like the Christ Child, becoming ready for a life of service through whichever vocation God chooses for him upon this earth.

Homily – The 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]

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The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
II Kings 4:8-11,14-16  +  Romans 6:3-4,8-11  +  Matthew 10:37-42
July 2, 2023

Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is a bountiful giver of gifts.  He gifts us beyond measure.  Yet the measure of a Christian disciple is the extent to which the disciple accepts these gifts.

All of Jesus’ gifts to us have one aim.  That aim is to make each of us like Him.  Or to use the more lofty language of theology, the aim of Jesus’ gifts is to conform each of us to Christ.  Or to use the language that Jesus employed at His Last Supper, the aim of Jesus’ gifts is for the Christian disciple to abide in Christ, and for Christ in turn to abide in the disciple.  Jesus’ gifts make that mutual indwelling—the disciple in Christ, and Christ in the disciple—possible.

The catch, however, is that the Christian has to actively accept each one of Jesus’ gifts.  The Christian disciple is not like an empty glass that God fills with water.  Instead, at any given point in the disciple’s spiritual life, Christ offers His disciple the gift that He wants the disciple to have, and it’s up to the disciple to accept that gift, or to reject that gift.

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It all starts with the Sacrament of Baptism.  Baptism is the first gift by which Jesus’ aim can be accomplished.  St. Paul speaks to us today in the Second Reading about this gift.

Now, to put today’s Second Reading in context:  the passage is from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  Out of the 27 books of the New Testament, 21 are letters written by various apostles.  Out of those 21, two-thirds of them—fourteen of the 21 letters—were written by St. Paul.  Out of those fourteen letters written by St. Paul, his Letter to the Romans is the longest and most challenging.  That’s why when you open the pages of your bible, you find that Romans is the first apostolic letter, right after Acts of the Apostles.

Another point that helps us appreciate today’s Second Reading is just how different the apostles who wrote those 21 New Testament letters were from each other.  Just like the various pastors of a parish, the various apostles had the same job, but went about that job differently, because they were different persons.  After all, Father Sam and Father H, and Father Philip Allen, and Father David Linnebur are and were different priests, but all carried out the same work as your pastor.

The same thing is true of the apostles, and that’s seen in the variety that we hear when we listen to the 21 New Testament letters written by the apostles.  If you were to put all of those apostles who wrote New Testament letters along a spectrum, according to how they relate to their congregations, then at one end of the spectrum you’d find St. John the Apostle.  At the other end would be St. Paul the Apostle.

In the New Testament letters that St. John wrote, he’s constantly calling his congregation “beloved” and “little children”.  For example, he writes:  “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God” [1 John 4:7].  And:  “Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.  By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him” [1 John 3:18-19].  So St. John is like the old Irish pastor who could convince the stingiest parishioner to give his life savings to the parish school.

Then, at the other end of the spectrum, you have St. Paul.  St. Paul is like the cantankerous German pastor, who tells his congregation not what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.  (St. Paul was even known to send the collection basket around a second time if it didn’t fill up.)  St. Paul neither spared the verbal rod, nor spoiled the little children.  In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul writes:  “You stupid Galatians!  I told you exactly how Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross.  Has someone now put an evil spell on you?” [CEV:  Galatians 3:1].  (If St. Paul were around today, he’d probably be sent off for sensitivity training.)

Given how cantankerous St. Paul could be, in today’s Second Reading he’s preaching rather mildly.  At the start of the passage, St. Paul uses one of his more gentle means of correction.  Like a parent trying to correct one of his teenagers, St. Paul asks the Romans a rhetorical question, which he hopes will wake the Romans up:  “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”  St. Paul might instead have been more direct in his criticism, stating:  “You Romans are obviously unaware of the fact that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.”

We might wonder why St. Paul, on this particular occasion, chose to be more gentle in his criticism of the Romans.  Very possibly, St. Paul went easy on them because he knew what a difficult and demanding truth he was preaching about.  Baptism is a great gift.  But it’s even more so a great demand.  These two facts—that baptism, at one and the same time, is a great gift and also a great demand—calls to mind another saying of Jesus:  “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more” [Luke 12:48].

In Baptism, you have been entrusted with the great gift that St. Paul explores in today’s Second Reading:  the gift of dying to yourself.  St. Paul’s teaching corresponds with the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading:  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

The fact is that whenever you live for yourself, your life ends up much smaller than the life God has in mind for you.  What’s more, when you live for yourself, your life becomes much more difficult.

Of course, it’s true that losing your life for Christ’s sake is also difficult.  The difference is, when you live for yourself, you have to live by yourself:  that is, you have to live by means of only your own human gifts and your own human lights to deal with the difficulties that the world, the devil, and your own sins throw up in your path as roadblocks.  Whereas when you lose your life for Christ’s sake, then God, through Christ, will offer the graces—the gifts—needed to overcome those roadblocks.  The bottom line, however, is that you have to actively accept the gifts that God offers you.

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Consider a personal example of the words of Jesus and St. Paul.  Consider a real-life example of someone who lost his life for Christ’s sake, and in doing so found his life.  Consider a real-life example of someone who lived his life aware that he had been baptized into the death of Christ Jesus.

This past Monday, June 26th, the Church celebrated the feast day of St. Josemaría Escrivá.  St. John Paul II called St. Josemaría “the saint of ordinary life”.  This Spring, on my pilgrimage to Europe, I learned a lot about St. Josemaría Escrivá.  One of the countries I visited was Spain, the nation in which he was born.  Throughout many different churches in Spain, I saw chapels dedicated to him, with statues and paintings of him.  In the United States, he’s not as well known as he is in Spain, though he ought to be.

St. Josemaría Escrivá was born in 1902. He was ordained a diocesan priest, but in 1928 he founded a religious organization that in some ways resembles a religious order.  His organization includes laypersons because a large part of the mission of this organization concerns living the Gospel in ordinary life:  embracing daily dying to self in a joyful, fruitful manner.

You know, one of the gravest struggles within the Church today is the ignoring of ordinary life, and its importance:  ordinary life being the very place where holiness is to be found.  Instead, more than a few people within the Church today encourage a view of the spiritual life which focuses upon what’s bright and shiny and flashy, instead of what’s plain and ordinary.  The problem is that what’s bright and shiny and flashy is like the seed that’s planted on the path:  it sprouts and then withers because it lacks roots.  Ordinary life, by contrast, is the seedbed for the holiness that flourishes.

That contrast, very sadly, is one reason why marriages today wither for lack of roots.  Some spouses look for within marriage what some Christians look for within the spiritual life:  what is bright and shiny, what is flashy and spectacular, instead of what is ordinary, down-to-earth, and self-sacrificial.  Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage apply as much to the marriage vocation specifically as they do to the spiritual life generally:  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Consider a passage from one of St. Josemaría Escrivá’s best known works, titled simply The Way.  In a section of the book about mortification, he writes about simple ways to practice self-sacrifice:

“The appropriate word you left unsaid; the joke you didn’t tell; the cheerful smile for those who bother you; that silence when you’re unjustly accused; your kind conversation with people you find boring and tactless; the daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in those who live with you…  this, with perseverance, is indeed solid interior mortification” [The Way 173].

That’s not flashy, and it’s not bright or shiny.  It’s the Gospel, pure and simple.  In the same section, St. Josemaría writes:  “The world admires only the spectacular sacrifice, because it does not realize the value of the sacrifice that is hidden and silent” [The Way 185].  The world’s admiration is for those who hold the world as their treasure.  But if we want to reach Heaven, our time and energy is better spent accepting God’s gifts, in order to have the strength inside us to put into practice the words of Jesus Christ:  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time

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Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:30-37

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

Today’s Gospel passage points our attention back to one of the first lessons of the liturgical year.  This lesson is expressed in the saying, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.”  Another way of expressing the same truth is to say that “the only reason Jesus was born into this world was to die to this world”, or perhaps rather, “for this world”.  We might be tempted at Christmastime to think only of the innocence of the infant Christ, without connecting this innocence to the purity of the Lamb who was slain on Calvary.

It might seem strange for today’s Gospel passage to meander from Jesus’ prediction of His Passion and Death at the passage’s beginning to His holding up a child for emulation at its end.  But this beginning and end are connected by Jesus Himself.

It is because Jesus, as a divine person, is completely innocent (indeed more so than any child) that He becomes a fitting sacrifice on Calvary.  We may think of innocence as a goal of our spiritual life because it prepares us to be fit for Heaven.  Perhaps greater spiritual growth might come from seeing innocence as preparing us for a share in Jesus’ Passion during our earthly life.

Tuesday of the SEVENth Week in Ordinary Time

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Tuesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:30-37

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

Today’s Gospel passage points our attention back to one of the first lessons of the liturgical year.  This lesson is expressed in the saying, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.”  Another way of expressing the same truth is to say that “the only reason Jesus was born into this world was to die to this world”, or perhaps rather, “for this world”.  We might be tempted at Christmastime to think only of the innocence of the infant Christ, without connecting this innocence to the purity of the Lamb who was slain on Calvary.

It might seem strange for today’s Gospel passage to meander from Jesus’ prediction of His Passion and Death at the passage’s beginning to His holding up a child for emulation at its end.  But this beginning and end are connected by Jesus Himself.

It is because Jesus, as a divine person, is completely innocent (indeed more so than any child) that He becomes a fitting sacrifice on Calvary.  We may think of innocence as a goal of our spiritual life because it prepares us to be fit for Heaven.  Perhaps greater spiritual growth might come from seeing innocence as preparing us for a share in Jesus’ Passion during our earthly life.

Monday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time

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Monday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:14-29

… they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.

Today’s Gospel scene takes place immediately after the Transfiguration.  There on Mount Tabor Peter had wanted to stay, saying, “Master, it is good for us to be here.  Let us make three booths….”  But Jesus teaches Peter that it was not for transfiguration that He came into this world.  In today’s Gospel passage Jesus descends the mountain and enters into conflict between His disciples and the scribes, resuming the ministry for which He became Flesh and dwelt among us.

To His disciples, who were unable to drive out the mute spirit, He expresses disappointment at their lack of faith and rhetorically asks, “How long will I be with you?  How long will I endure you?”  But Jesus’ criticism on this occasion is not limited to His own disciples.  When the father of the possessed son says to Jesus, “If you can do anything… help us.”  To this, the Lord cries out, “If you can!”

Then Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter:  the lack of faith.  He had moments before described His disciples as a “faithless generation”.  Now He says to the father, “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”  But to this, the father offers an intriguing rejoinder:  “I do believe, help my unbelief.”  Jesus must have thought him sincere since He did help him.  But perhaps today we could pray over this father’s words, make them our own in prayer, and root all of the petitions that we make today in these words.  This father recognizes that in this fallen world, faith is always needed.  One cannot outgrow the need for faith.

©Photo. R.M.N. / R.-G. OjŽda

Monday of the sevneth Week in Ordinary Time

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Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:14-29

… they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.

Today’s Gospel scene takes place immediately after the Transfiguration.  There on Mount Tabor Peter had wanted to stay, saying, “Master, it is good for us to be here.  Let us make three booths….”  But Jesus teaches Peter that it was not for transfiguration that He came into this world.  In today’s Gospel passage Jesus descends the mountain and enters into conflict between His disciples and the scribes, resuming the ministry for which He became Flesh and dwelt among us.

To His disciples, who were unable to drive out the mute spirit, He expresses disappointment at their lack of faith and rhetorically asks, “How long will I be with you?  How long will I endure you?”  But Jesus’ criticism on this occasion is not limited to His own disciples.  When the father of the possessed son says to Jesus, “If you can do anything… help us.”  To this, the Lord cries out, “If you can!”

Then Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter:  the lack of faith.  He had moments before described His disciples as a “faithless generation”.  Now He says to the father, “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”  But to this, the father offers an intriguing rejoinder:  “I do believe, help my unbelief.”  Jesus must have thought him sincere since He did help him.  But perhaps today we could pray over this father’s words, make them our own in prayer, and root all of the petitions that we make today in these words.  This father recognizes that in this fallen world, faith is always needed.  One cannot outgrow the need for faith.

©Photo. R.M.N. / R.-G. OjŽda

The 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]

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The 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18  +  1 Corinthians 3:16-23  +  Matthew 5:38-48
Catechism Link: CCC 2012
February 19, 2023

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Today’s Gospel passage has three parts.  The first two consist of examples that Jesus gives us.  He started giving these examples last Sunday.  Keep in mind, though, that Jesus prefaces all these examples by stating:  “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  So all these examples are illustrations of how to move from acting like the scribes and Pharisees towards acting in a way that will lead you to Heaven.

Each example follows the same pattern.  Jesus starts each example by saying, “You have heard that it was said ….”  Then He quotes the Old Testament to show how the scribes and Pharisees act.  But in the second part, Jesus explains how His disciples will act if they want to get to Heaven.  So Jesus continues each example by saying, “But I say to you ….”  Then Jesus gives us a new understanding of the Law of God.  In doing so, Jesus perfects the Law of God.

As Jesus gives these six examples of righteousness—one after another—they increase in their demands.  They grow more and more difficult to follow, and finally culminate in the example that must have shocked half of the people listening to Jesus, and completely confused the other half.  Jesus said to the crowd, “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 ….”

Why would this example have shocked and confused Jesus’ crowd?  There are several reasons, the most obvious of which is that for many in ancient Israel, hating their enemies was thought to be a survival instinct.

Yet they not only applied this lesson as they looked out from Israel to other nations.  They turned in on themselves.  They applied this lesson against each other.  Kings of Israel spent as much time and energy uniting its twelve tribes as they did fighting outsiders.

By Jesus’ day, Israel was divided into three regions:  Galilee in the north, Samaria in the middle, and Judah in the south.  The Gospel paints a portrait of animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews in Judah.  This animosity is illustrated by the shock of the Samaritan woman at the well when Jesus approaches her in kindness.  It’s also illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which turns upon the novel notion of a Samaritan treating someone in Judah as a neighbor.

But the divisions of sin marched further, all the way to Calvary.  Even among the Jews in Jerusalem, the various parties of power often pitted themselves against each other.  The Acts of the Apostles tells how St. Paul once pitted the Sadducees and Pharisees against each other by means of their differences.  By doing so, Paul escaped from the legal trial he unjustly faced.

A far more unjust trial, however, took place on Good Friday, when the innocent Son of God was declared guilty of blasphemy.  He was nailed to a cross to die while “Barabbas”, the “Son of man” who had committed insurrection, was freed by the crowd.  The irony of Good Friday is the logical outcome of looking for an enemy where God has given you a friend.  On Good Friday, man puts God on trial, and declares God to be man’s enemy, while the whole point of the Incarnation was that man might call God his neighbor, his brother, and his Savior.

In this world below, where we are part of the “pilgrim Church”—part of the “Church militant”—we often confuse our neighbors and our enemies.  The English convert G. K. Chesterton once quipped, “The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”  This is true because we are fallen children of Adam and Eve.  We do not think we should be our brother’s keeper.  The whole history of fallen man—from Adam versus Eve, to Cain versus Abel, to our own time and place—testifies to our sin of turning neighbors into enemies.

In this world here below, our only real enemies are the devil and his divisions of fallen angels.  We need to learn that among our human family, there are no enemies, but only neighbors whom we have not loved as Jesus has.