Fr. Roger J. Landry

St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois

Catholic Medical Association Boot Camp for Medical Students and Residents

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I

June 14, 2021

2 Cor 6:1-10, Ps 98, Mt 5:38-42

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.14.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we’re one week into our annual 16-day meditation on Jesus’ words to us in the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus gives us an image of how he lives and how we’re supposed to live as his disciples. He explicitly calls us with him to fulfill the law, to surpass the standards of righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, to surpass the standards of the pagans who love those who love them, but to live by Jesus’ own standards, encouraging us to make his words and his example the rock on which we build our life.

* Today we enter into the heart of the contrast between Jesus’ standards and those of the pagans, the Scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus talks about the Law of Talion, which antedates the Old Testament, but was included in the law of Moses, which sought to limit vengeance by saying, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Merely limiting retaliation, however, wasn’t enough for Jesus. He wanted us to stand up for our dignity while, as he would say later, loving even those who are making themselves our enemies. To turn the other cheek as someone was seeking to backhand us was not principally to be beaten on the other cheek with a forehand but to stand for one’s dignity not to be slapped by preventing one from backhanding us again. It was a means to prevent our being eaten away by resentment by affirming that we’re not resisting but we’re also not giving the other person an opportunity to offend our dignity and his own. Jesus would build on this in the other examples he gives. If someone wants to have our tunic or inner garment, he tells us to give our cloak or jacket, and if he wants us to be pressed into service to deliver something for one mile, that we should go for two. The lesson in all of the examples is the same. It’s the lesson Jesus himself taught in his Good Shepherd Discourse: “No one takes my life from me. I freely lay it down” (Jn 10:18). Rather than being victimized, we willingly participate with love. He wants us to triumph over evil not by allowing it to triumph over us but by responding with love to others’ hatred. Far more courage and virtue are required to be a disciple than to fight evil with more evil. These are Jesus’ standards, to give to the one who asks rather than worrying about the quid pro quo, not to turn our back to someone in need no matter how many times others — or even that person — have turned backs on us. This is the way our righteousness will surpass the scribes and pharisees. This is the way we will love not only those who love us but love like Jesus. This is super challenging teaching but it is part of the truth that sets us free. As Christians we always fight back with love, for if we don’t, to paraphrase St. Paul, we’re nothing more than noisy gongs and clashing cymbals and will gain nothing (1 Cor 13:1-8).

* St. Paul is someone who certainly lived and loved by Jesus’ standards. In the first reading he calls the Corinthians and us urgently to let our lives be transformed by them as well. He reminds us that God gives us his grace today — that now is the acceptable time and the day of salvation — and prays that we will not waste that grace. These worldly hardships and annoyances Jesus describes in the Sermon are all graces to sculpt us more and more in his divine image. St. Paul himself suffered all of the indignities to w...