On this Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, which this year is the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent, we are still in the fifth chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. This is the fourth week our Gospel reading is taken from this chapter, which constitutes the core of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Today's reading picks up at the very next verse from where last week’s ended. Hence, we’re still in the part of the Sermon on the Mount known as the “Theses and Antitheses.”
Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Rest easy, it isn’t. Jesus’ theses begin with words like, “You have heard it said…” His antitheses begin with, “But I say to you…” His theses are taken directly from the Law. For example, in Exodus we read:
But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe1In the Law as set forth in our first reading, taken from the so-called “Holiness Code” of the Book of Leviticus, it is clear that one’s neighbor is a member of “your own people.”2 In his Parable of the Good Samaritan, which is unique to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gives an astounding antithesis, expanding the definition of one’s neighbor even to include the despised Samaritans!3 But his antithesis in today’s Gospel constitutes an even more radical call to discipleship.
Saint Paul, in our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, writes very straightforwardly that God’s wisdom seems like foolishness to those possessed of worldly wisdom. After all, what could be more foolish than loving your enemies or refusing to return a push for every shove, to give as good as you get? These are some of the Lord’s most difficult teachings.
Hating those who hate you and being intent on seeking revenge are what might be called “natural” responses to being hated and wronged. But Jesus, who is God's kindness and mercy personified, calls his followers to a manner of living that is difficult and counterintuitive. The hardest part of living in this new and strange way is not merely refraining from violent, vengeful responses but the interior work required to actually love those who do you wrong and seek the good of those who wish you ill. According to Jesus, forgiveness is only the beginning.
In our Gospel readings over this past month, Jesus’ teaching is meant to provoke us. The word “provocation” is a compound word meaning for (=pro) your calling (=vocation). Seeking to adhere even to these hard teachings of our Lord is our calling, the calling you received in baptism when you died and rose with Christ to new life. This is what new life in Christ looks like! “As we see,” wrote Victor Hugo about Monseigneur Myriel, the benevolent bishop in Les Miserables, “he had a strange and peculiar way of judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel.”
On this final Sunday of Ordinary Time before the start of Lent, we celebrate the Rite of Sending. Who is sent? First, we send our Catechumens. Second, we send our Candidates. Where are they sent? We send them to the Cathedral for the Rite of Election and the Call to Continuing Conversion? Finally, to whom are they sent? They are sent to Bishop Solis. It is the bishop who “elects” the Catechumens to the sacraments of Christian Initiation: baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. He also calls those already baptized but not yet in full communion with the Church to continue their conversion as they seek full communion with the Catholic Church.
[To the Elect and Candidate at the Mass during which the Rite is celebrated: So, Tatiana, Don, George, and John, let the teachings of Jesus you’ve heard today and on the several Sundays preceding serve as a provocation, a call from the Lord. These hard teachings are points of discernment as you approach the Easter sacraments. In short, you must be ready to live like Christians as that life is taught and exemplified by our Lord himself.]
The scriptures we’ve heard today call us to repentance. The Greek word, metanoia, usually translated as “repent,” means to have a change of mind, a change of heart. In other words, to repent is to change, and to be changed is to be converted. For a Christian, this means being more and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, the One, who, as he was nailed to the cross, demonstrated what it means to love your enemies and pray for those who ill-treat you.
Far from being a downer, Lent, which comes from the old English word for spring, is the time each year during which we prepare for our celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. An important part of celebrating Christ's rising from the dead, which occurs at the Great Easter Vigil, is the baptism of the Elect and the renewal of your baptismal promises.
Therefore, as we stand on the threshold of Lent, a season dedicated to repentance, we must disabuse ourselves of the very un-Catholic and un-Christian notion that grace and effort are mutually exclusive. Of course, we need God’s grace to make our efforts fruitful. It is God who both begins and brings to completion his good work in and through you.4
It is true that the practice of spiritual discipline will not, in and of itself, bring you closer to Christ. To believe otherwise is to make the same mistake made by the scribes and Pharisees with whom Jesus disputed. It is to mistake means for ends. Only Christ can draw you closer to himself. What even your best efforts do is open you to God’s grace, clearing space for and attuning yourself to the Spirit.
As Christians, we live and learn by seeking to put into practice the teachings of Jesus. Experience is the best teacher. How else can you really verify the truth of what these scriptures set forth? As the religion of the Incarnation, Christianity cannot remain a set of abstract ideas and ideals. As Lent approaches, let us recommit ourselves to practicing the core spiritual disciplines taught to us by Jesus: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Let your practice of these disciplines foster growth in theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. Hope is the flower of faith and selfless, self-sacrificing love is their fruit. The end to which the Law is but the means, as Jesus demonstrates repeatedly in word and deed, is to love God with your entire being and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Or given the often-convoluted way we relate to ourselves, to love your neighbor as Christ loves you.
Therefore, let our prayer be that of today’s Collect, or opening prayer, for today’s Mass: “Grant, almighty God that… [we] may carry out in both word and deed that which is pleasing to you.” And “may we experience” through this Eucharist, as our Prayer After Communion pleads, “the effects of the salvation which is pledged to us by these mysteries.”
1 Exodus 21:23-35.↩
2 Leviticus 19:18.↩
3 See Luke 10:25-37.↩
4 Philippians 1:6.↩
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