The words of Sacred Scripture are both informative – they give us information, and performative - they make God present.
This means that every time we read or listen to the Bible, God wants to change us. He wants to give us a new strength to live out what we've heard. So, it's important to listen attentively, and to try to pick up the significance of even apparently insignificant details.
And in the gospel today Jesus does something extremely important. When Christ sends his disciples out to share the new life, they've discovered by being with him, he sends them out two by two.
The great commandment of Jesus is very simple: love one another as I have loved you. He's saying that no one can flourish in isolation. No one can love in isolation. No can become a saint in isolation.
Therefore, he sends them out two by two. The message could not be clearer: the only truly convincing witness to Christianity comes when we love one another.
However, the disciples were like the rest of us. Some of them didn't click with each other. Look at the way Jesus put the unlikeliest people together. For example, in his inner circle we find Matthew, a former tax collector, and Simon, a former Zealot.
Tax collectors were considered creatures of the hated Romans who occupied the Holy Land at the time of Jesus. Zealots were freedom fighters who wanted nothing more than to drive out the Romans. And Jesus put the two of them in this band of 13 men who spent three years roaming the countryside together and commanded them to love one another. And they did.
This is the new power that we receive as Christians. In our own lives, God will give us people who drive us crazy. He will give us people that we can't stand, whose one goal in life seems to be to make our lives miserable.
He commands us to love them. This doesn't mean that we'll like them. But it does mean that we will their good, we pray for them, and we show them kindness. And by the grace of God within us, we can do this.
St Philip Neri and the Orb of Fire
St Philip Neri illustrates this new power in the way he treated a couple of sacristans at his church in Rome. They were renegade monks who had fled their monastery. For some reason they hated Philip, and made his life miserable. They knew his hatred of dirt, so they gave him the dirtiest vestments they could find.
When he was about to begin Mass, they would interrupt his preparation and send him to another altar. They would lock the sacristy door when he wanted to say Mass. Of course, St Philip got frustrated with all this. Once during Mass, he looked at the crucifix and complained: "Why don't you hear me, Jesus? I've asked you again and again to give me patience. Why is my soul still filled with thoughts of anger and impatience?"
He seemed to hear an answer: "Do you want patience, Philip? I will give it to you, if your heart desires it. You will earn it through these temptations of yours."
And God gave him the power to love these two gadflies. In fact, the story has a happy ending. One day, one of the monk sacristans started insulting Philip. The other monk began to feel remorse, and defended Philip.
He ended up punching Philip's tormentor, and Philip had to come to the rescue. Moved by this, both monks asked his forgiveness and returned to their monasteries.
Christ commands us to love others, especially those who torment us. And, like St Philip Neri, with God's grace we're capable of that.
Pray for those who persecute youJesus gives us a very practical way to love those who annoy or attack us. In the Gospel of Matthew 5:44, Jesus says: "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."
We all have people who persecute us. Perhaps it's unintentional, but they make our life very difficult. Maybe it's someone who speaks badly about me behind my back. Maybe it's someone who can't open his mouth without being biting and sarcastic. Maybe it's someone whom I trusted and then let me down. Maybe it's someone at work who is angling to get my job.
Whatever it is, the Lord is asking me to pray for that person. (And he doesn't mean to pray that this person gets a one-way ticket to his eternal reward.) What if I don't want to? Then ask for the grace to want to pray for that person.
And then get started. Maybe at first it will just be a simple Hail Mary prayed through clenched teeth. But don't give up; you're imitating Christ, who prayed even for those who crucified him.
When we receive Christ in the Eucharist today, let's beg him for the grace to love those who persecute us, especially by praying for them.
St. Anne's Church
1 Tung Tau Wan Road
Stanley, Hong Kong
Office Hours:
Sunday 8:30-1:30
Tue-Fri 9:00-12:00, 1:00-6:30
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Tel: +852 2813 0206
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