February 19
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
“The Lord is kind and merciful.”
Readings
Reflection
Today’s first reading–from the Book of Leviticus (one of the books of the Torah) and our gospel reading speak of love and how we should love one another. The first reading from the Book of Leviticus is brief but contains the key points or commands for living life as God wants us to live. The main idea here is that love is the most perfect way that we can express our faith in God. The world is more interested in hate or nurturing grudges against each other while God wants us to be one as he and Jesus are.
The second reading tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit and we must do all that we can to protect and strengthen that temple. If we look after the temple within us and live according to the will of the Spirit, we will truly love our fellow men and women and so help make the kingdom of God a visible reality here on Earth for all to see.
In the gospel, Jesus tells us that the old way of ‘an eye for an eye’ has no place in the kingdom and will not lead to peace. He tells us that we must love even our enemies if we are to be his disciples and so bring lasting peace to the world. The problem we have is that we don’t see our enemy as someone that we can love. We hold on to our anger for someone who has done us wrong; we want to revenge ourselves on someone who has hurt us in one way or another. But with God, this anger and need for revenge can be cooled in the light of his love.
As we look at the complete picture of our readings today, we can see that as people who are in fact, vessels of the Holy Spirit, we should be able to find a way to learn to love our brothers and sisters in the world. If not love, then at least we can find a way to coexist with each other in a way that conveys the idea that we are all children of God, and as such, we should respect what he has asked us to do.
Peace,
Deacon Dare
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