7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
First reading Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18
The Lord spoke to Moses; he said:
‘Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them:
‘“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.
‘“You must not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. You must openly tell him, your neighbour, of his offence; this way you will not take a sin upon yourself. You must not exact vengeance, nor must you bear a grudge against the children of your people. You must love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.”’
Psalm: Psalm 102:1-4,8,10,12-13
Second reading 1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Didn’t you realise that you were God’s temple and that the Spirit of God was living among you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple.
Make no mistake about it: if any one of you thinks of himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn to be a fool before he really can be wise. Why? Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As scripture says: The Lord knows wise men’s thoughts: he knows how useless they are; or again: God is not convinced by the arguments of the wise. So there is nothing to boast about in anything human: Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life and death, the present and the future, are all your servants; but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.
Gospel Matthew 5:38-48
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; if a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.
‘You have learnt how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? Even the tax collectors do as much, do they not? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do as much, do they not? You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’
Reflection
By Grace Madriñan
We have this popular saying in Filipino, which says, “Ang pikon ay laging talo”, which means that those who are affected or easily angered always loses. I am very much aware of this. In my mind, I have conditioned myself not to fall easily on the trap of losing myself to anger. But there were lapses, and I failed the test. Almost a month ago, I was enraged by a counterpart who instead of helping out, fanned the problems further aflame by escalating and bringing up an issue that has long been resolved. What she did gave the impression to the management that our processes were inefficient and that our team is incompetent.
After calming myself down, I tried to look for some ‘lessons’ from what happened. It was a wake-up call, actually. First lesson is for me to try my best not to let anger get the best of me. Although I cannot expect myself not to feel any emotion, I have decided to rise from it as quickly as possible. Second, I will not let ‘friendship’ dictate how I work. The reason why I was hurt that bad was because I considered her as a friend, and that I trusted her. Next time, I will be more professional and objective at work. If I need to push my co-worker for more work to be done, I will. As for myself, I will do more work proactively, not leaving anything to chance.
At this time, I am back to my usual self. I can now talk and work with my said counterpart without any desire to bite her head off . I have forgiven her. I still consider her as a friend, though I keep myself on guard. Jesus is right when He said that it is more noble and braver to love your neighbor, even enemies. Who among us can easily offer a right hand to someone who ripped our left hand? Who among us can easily embrace an enemy after stabbing us in the back? Not everyone can do that. But only a true follower of Christ can. In today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs us as His follower, to be patient instead of being intolerant, to be giving instead of tightfisted, to love instead of hate.
Father, sometimes it is very difficult to forgive, much more to love our neighbor. But with Christ as our model of love, who was able, not only to forgive, but also loved those who crucified Him – how can we fail Him? We lift our hearts to You to mold us and teach us that we may do the same. Amen.
Worry List
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