+We have just heard from the book of Deuteronomy that we are to observe God’s statutes and decrees with all our hearts and all our souls. Then Jesus in the gospel tells us this morning we are to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us. Who can really do what God is asking of us and maybe this is the whole point of our readings this AM. They ground us in humility, in our total dependence on God’s love and mercy.
Jesus asks of each one of us what is far beyond out capability. To love as he has loved is only possible if we experience in the depth of our own hearts a love that is beyond words to express, a love beyond all that the human heart can begin to fathom or to give. Only when we have been touched in the depths of our being by God’s self-giving, will we be able to live as Christ is asking of us.
Isn’t this the reason we are invited to take time during this season to ponder deeply on Christ’s love for us, the way he allowed himself to be handed over, suffer the agony in the garden, allowing himself to be scourged and crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross for love of us, that we can begin to respond from the depth of our hearts to what Jesus asks of us today. To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, loving with the whole of our being as Jesus asks of us is only possible with the presence and gift of His own Spirit.
Deut. 26:16-19; Matt 5:43-48