Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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If you have ever played a video game, then you know that there is always a series of levels.
The first level is the easiest, and the final level is the most difficult.
Sometimes it takes multiple tries before you succeed in beating that final level… but if you do, then you’ve mastered the game.
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If Christianity were likened to a video game, then today’s Gospel would be the final level: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
If you can freely do this, then you’ve mastered Christianity.
Have I mastered Christianity?
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Most of us likely have not. There are some mountains too tall for us to climb, humanly speaking. Forgiving those who’ve hurt us can be one of them.
This can be particularly true at home and in the workplace.
But anything is possible when our heart is absorbed in Christ. Suddenly, he does the loving and forgiving for us.
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This is how the game is mastered, so to speak, by walking the path of surrender until, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20).
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Image credits: (1) Family Foundations Institute (2) TechNewsWorld (3) Revive Our Hearts
Brothers and sisters: As your fellow workers, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says:
In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.
Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry; on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left; through glory and dishonor, insult and praise. We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful; as unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.
The Word of the Lord.
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A week ago, we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit struck a match within the hearts of the Apostles, descending upon them in a strong wind as tongues of fire, filling them with unbreakable courage.
The event itself is shrouded in mystery; none of us has ever seen the Holy Spirit. But like the Apostles, we can feel the difference. The Spirit imbues us with an inexhaustible energy – a restlessness – that compels us to bear witness to Christ.
As the prophet Jeremiah once foretold, “Your WORD is like a fire in my bones! Woe to me if I do not preach it!”
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This is what Saint Paul is describing in our first reading. Many of the early Christians lived terribly difficult lives; yet they never gave up. They labored, prayed, fasted – and slowly changed the world.
Consider the various trials Paul and others faced. He breaks them down into three different categories: internal conflicts, physical pain, and Christian living.
Perhaps the greatest internal pain Paul experienced was sorrow; he lived a life of departures. He was not only imprisoned seven times, but he also moved from one Christian community to another, knowing he’d never see those friends again.
Physically, Paul and many others were martyred. There’s a good chance that you and I would never have heard the Gospel had some of our brothers and sisters not willingly undergone bodily torment.
Third, they lived thoroughly Christian lives – sometimes praying throughout the night, fasting (not always by choice), and preaching the Gospel at any cost – sometimes with words.
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It’s easy to wonder how so many Christians persevered to the end.
They were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Our world needs that same type of Christian witness today as, together, we can slowly change the world for Christ.
Come, Holy Spirit!
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Image credits: (1) Saint Peter’s Basilica(2) Public Domain via Flickr (3) Vacilando, WordPress
Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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By a show of hands, how many of you have you either heard of or read Dante’s Inferno, the first book in his famous trilogy, The Divine Comedy?
The Divine Comedy is the story of his soul’s journey to God. Dante begins in hell, but eventually he makes his way through purgatory into heaven.
Each stage of his journey has captivated and shaped Catholic imaginations since it was written more than 700 years ago.
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In hell, Dante descends through nine different circles of sin, each representing a gradual increase in wickedness: from lust, to greed, to anger, and so on. Finally, when he reaches the very bottom, he encounters that ancient beast, Satan.
Surprisingly, Satan isn’t breathing fire as many of us might have imagined.
He’s frozen, trapped waist-deep in ice. Above his waist, his furry bat-like wings flap restlessly as he torments himself eternally.
That’s where the Evil One freely chooses to be – stuck in the darkness, frozen in ice, completely separated from the outside world.
For Dante, that’s hell – being isolated; trapped.
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Alone.
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How we wish that loneliness was something only the devil felt.
But it can creep into any human heart, especially after scrolling through social media for hours on end; after a heated family argument; a breakup; or losing a loved one.
Why is loneliness so painful?
Because it frustrates and opposes our human nature. We believe that we were made in the image and likeness of God, who is not alone, but is a community of Three Persons – Father, Son, and Spirit, each of whom is bound to the others by love.
This is what Dante discovers as he ascends from the icy darkness, through the purification of purgatory, into Paradiso, the glory of heaven.
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Heaven is a place of welcome, light, and love. The angels and Saints swirl around the throne of God in praise. The higher Dante climbs the brighter it becomes, until finally he beholds God Almighty.
Unlike Satan, God isn’t trapped in ice, flapping his furry bat-like wings.
God is living in community, surrounded by love.
Dante discovers that this is the secret to his own happiness – living in perfect harmony with others, even while here on earth.
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It’s an amazing Christian insight: The more we live in peace with our neighbors, the happier we become, because we are reflecting the inner life of God, who created us.
As Saint John writes, “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” For wherever there is love, God is found.
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Thus, God is found when couples exchange their vows. God is found when parents behold their newborn child, and watch as they grow.
God is found when neighbors are reconciled; when the hungry are fed; when the naked are clothed; when the weak are cared for; and when the sick are cured.
God is also found in our brokenness. His Spirit is that healing balm that slowly pieces us back together.
As Dante writes at the end of The Divine Comedy, God is, “The love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
God is everything that is holy, beautiful, and good – not only in heaven, but also in us.
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If hell resembles being alone, then heaven is being together, even while here on earth.
This is what God desires for all of humanity – to live as one, just as the Father, Son and Spirit are One.
On this Trinity Sunday, we pray that God would strengthen the bonds we hold so dear – our connections to our family, our friends, to this community, and to God himself, while also repairing those relationships in need of healing.
Doing so gives us a taste of Paradiso, even before our journey is complete.
