Homily for 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
7th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Feb. 23, 2025
Luke 6: 27-38
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

by Henrik Olrik

“Jesus said to his disciples:  ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’” (Luke 6: 27-28, 36).

Last week we began reading from Jesus’ “Sermon the Plain,” his preaching on what St. Luke calls “a stretch of level ground” (6:17).  It’s Luke’s equivalent to St. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, altho it’s briefer.  Both of these sermons contain the core of Jesus’ teaching.  Pope Francis tells us we should know and practice the Beatitudes (last Sunday’s gospel and Matthew ch. 5) as well as we know and practice the 10 Commandments.

There’s probably nothing harder for us to do as Christ’s followers than to love everyone evenhandedly, to do always “to others as you would have them do to you” (6:31)—even people who hate us, people who do us wrong, and people we simply don’t care for; to be merciful rather than judgmental and bitter.

Jesus himself gives us example.  He prayed that God forgive his executioners (Luke 23:34).  He readily forgave Peter for denying him (John 21:15-17).  He called Judas “friend” even tho he was in the act of betraying him (Matt 26:50).

The 1st reading gave us the example of David, the future heroic king of Israel.  He refused to kill King Saul, who had already tried to kill him and continued hunting for him with evil intent (1 Sam 26).  In our own time, St. John Paul II immediately forgave his would-be assassin and later visited him in prison.

AP / Wikimedia Commons

Some of the occasions in my life that I regret include being too quick to pass judgment, being harsh or sarcastic, and being impatient rather than merciful.  Don’t we all misjudge others sometimes, and perhaps act on our bad judgments?  Don’t we all get upset, even angry, over relatively little things?  Perhaps a lot of us wish evil would fall upon someone who’s harmed us.

How many of us have prayed for someone who’s bad-mouthed us, betrayed us, or physically hurt us or our families?  How many of us have prayed for people who do evil, like waging war, killing unborn people, running drug cartels, trafficking human beings, polluting our air and water, engaging in terrorism, discrimination, political corruption?

It’s not enuf to wring our hands or to moan that the world’s going to hell in a handbasket.  We have to pray, and we have to act positively within our own circle of family, friends, neighborhood, and politics.

by Giuseppe Molteni, 1838

Jesus wants us to remember how God treats us.  We all sin, sometimes quite grievously.  But God gave us his only-begotten Son so that we might be forgiven and inherit eternal life (cf. John 3:16).  He continues to love us.  He gives us a fresh start every time we’re sorry for our bad behavior.  In a word, God’s merciful.  “Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.  Not according to our sins does he deal with us” (Ps 103:8,10).  I’m very grateful for his mercy and patience every time I go to confession.

So Jesus tells us, too, to forgive, to be patient, to be kind.  “The measure that you measure with will be same measure used upon you” (Luke 6:38).  God will treat us as we’ve treated others.