Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
(Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 6:27-38)
Jesus calls his disciples in today’s gospel to a discipline
that would make a marine despair. They
are to turn the cheek when struck and offer their tunic when someone has
already taken their cloak. This agenda of
nonresistance will not appear to many as virtuous. Quite the opposite, the one who accepts it will
appear sheepish.
Such a stance is redeemed by two conscious choices. First, disciples must put on, as the first
reading says, “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” Each of these virtues serves in the rejection
of the impulse to defend oneself and one’s belongings. The second choice is to pray for the grace to
overcome the desire for vindication. One
needs the grace of the Spirit to resist the impulse of “fight or flight.” Demonstrating these compassion and godliness, Christians
will be recognized not as cowards but as promoters of a new way of being in the
world – the way of divine love.
Today many of us remember the horrific attacks on America
perpetrated by Muslim terrorists twenty-four years ago. The President of the United States at the
time, George W. Bush, a practicing Christian, ordered a reprisal against the
terrorists’ operating facilities in Afghanistan. We should ask ourselves whether he violated
Jesus mandate to his disciples. The
answer must be “no.” The President has the
responsibility of defending the people. Still
there were limits to the reprisal.
Nevertheless, the counterattacks did not exonerate American Christians
from praying for the conversion of their Muslim terrorist enemies.
