By Fr. Paul D. Scalia.

But first a note from Robert Royal: As we make this posting, Pope Francis's condition is being described as critical by the Vatican. We encourage all our readers to pray for the Holy Father.

Now for today's column...

There's a little bit of Thomas Jefferson in each of us. A scary thought. He infamously cut and pasted verses from the Gospels to remove all miracles and mentions of the supernatural. The result was The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth or the "Jefferson Bible." It's an arrogant work that presents a naturalized Jesus, who is eminently reasonable and palatable to a certain kind of taste - and harmless.

Unfortunately, we have the tendency to do likewise. If we don't cut out passages with a razor as Jefferson did, we certainly water down the strong words and smooth out the rough edges. We explain away what might discomfit us. As with Jefferson, it's all to make the Gospels more acceptable, more comfortable for our cult of comfort.

So it is with today's Gospel (Lk 6:27-38), one of the most demanding and haunting. Jesus commands us to "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." We are to be merciful just as our Father in heaven is merciful. But we look for a way to take the sting out of these commands: They're hyperbole. . . .He's speaking metaphorically. . . .Well, I mean, what does it really mean to love? We trim the words to fit our lives, rather than changing our lives to fit them.

Jesus meant what He said. And He Himself did what He commanded: Father, forgive them. He is the Word-made-flesh, both teacher and exemplar. He reveals by His own life that His commands are possible. The saints have taken these words at face-value and lived them out. No Christian martyr ever died spitting out vengeful threats at his executioners. The martyrs fulfilled Jesus' command with words of forgiveness and mercy, even to their enemies. Stephen in Jerusalem, Thomas More on Tower Hill, Maximilian Kolbe in Auschwitz - they fulfilled the words of today's Gospel.

Which means that these words are possible to live. But only as Christians. Christ's words never make any sense apart from Him and our vital participation in His life. The radical mercy He commands is not an add-on to discipleship but the inevitable fruit of our life in Christ. Problem is, we're still shackled to the natural, earthly man spoken of in the second reading. We're still assessing the New Adam's words by the First Adam's standards. We have not yet put on the fresh spiritual way of thinking characteristic of Christians.

The reason we want to water down Christ's words is because we don't hear them within the context of grace and divine filiation. We labor under the misconception that God will somehow give a command that we cannot fulfill. Instead we should consider that when He gives a command He also gives the grace to fulfill it.

Forgiveness is not only difficult but practically impossible without grace. Only God's grace makes us capable of Christian forgiveness, to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful. Indeed, we can be merciful as He is only because we have Him as our Heavenly Father.

Supreme confidence in this grace is expressed (not surprisingly) by Saint Augustine in his wonderful little prayer: Da quod iubes et iube quod vis (Give what you command and then command what you will). A favorite prayer of Pope Benedict XVI's. The Doctor of Grace gets the order just right. God commands us to do crazy things - like loving our enemies and blessing our persecutors - because He has first given us His grace, made us His children.

The first reading highlights by contrast the distinctly Christian dimension of the Gospel. It tells the story of David's mercy towards King Saul. But notice that his mercy is not the unqualified kind expected of us. David stays his hand only because Saul is the Lord's anointed. And "who can lay hands on the Lord's anointed and remain unpunishe...