Twenty-Third Tuesday in Ordinary Time

Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God?

The world constantly tells us to get even and make our enemies pay for what they’ve done to us. We are encouraged to take an adversarial relationship with those who have done us wrong in some shape, form, or fashion. However, Paul reminds us this is not the Way of Jesus. Christ did not come to proclaim a Gospel of Getting Even. No. He came to proclaim the Gospel of Love and Mercy. He showed us how to walk this path of compassion by turning his other cheek to those who persecuted him. He suffered mockery, beatings, and even death on a cross and never once did he raise his hand to strike down his enemies. Instead, he forgave them while he bled on the cross. If we want to have a part in his Kingdom, then this is exactly what we must do, too. Be kind and loving to all, even our enemies, and forgive those who do not know what they are doing.

Have we fallen into the worldly trap of trying to get even with someone else? How can we rather seek to forgive those who have harmed us? What can we do to become more Christ-like in our compassion?

O Lord, give us the grace to repay evils with goods and cheating with generosity of spirit.

Amen.