It's hard, but necessary to forgive if you truly want to live freely

Prayer for the Day
Dear God, please help us to learn how to become ever more loving and forgiving, both when it is enjoyable and easy as well as when it is painful and seems impossible. Amen.

Reflection

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father…” (Matthew 5:44-45)

This Gospel is probably one of the toughest to live out.  Love is not something given to someone because of anything they have done or not done but because of who he or she is: a child of God. Jesus tells us that God loves all his children, the good and the bad, by giving them both the rain and the sunshine, and, as St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8: 1-9, Jesus showed us this love by becoming poor for us so that we could become rich. His message shows us that love for all is essential to being God’s children and that he does not expect any less from us than to show that love to others.

Of course, this is challenging because it seems to go against our natural desire. This is the genius of Jesus’ call, though: we are called to move beyond ourselves to become like him. I can’t offer recommendations on how to implement this practically for you, my readers: our different experiences, dispositions, and outlooks are so varied that we probably already know areas in our life that we need to work on in order to be more loving, and each of us probably knows best the people and counsel that can help us achieve this goal. In any case, the theme among them is the call to be children of our Heavenly Father through loving all, even our enemies, just as he did.

Perhaps today we can think about who in our lives we have found difficult to love, pray for, and forgive.  

Did you ever have an “uh-oh!” moment?  One where you knew you were in for it?  Or thought you were? 

I was in the confessional recently making a good confession (I hope) and the priest, in persona Christi, was preparing to give me my penance when a phone rang!  It wasn’t mine!  Father apologized and said, “I’m sorry, I have to take this!”   His voice sounded urgent, and I thought, “It’s probably the Lord, Himself, calling in my penance.   Father was probably going to let me get off light—maybe an Our Father or two, and now I’ll have a million Our Fathers to say!”  

But, knowing how busy priests are and understanding that the person on the other end of the phone might have a life or death issue, I simply said, “That’s OK, Father.  It’s a sign of the times and you have a whole flock to minister to.”

He very quickly ended the call, apologized again, and picked up where he left off.  I’m relieved to say I didn’t have to say even close to a million Our Fathers.
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And, lest I forget--June 14th is my father-in-law's birthday.  He would have been 97 years old this year!  Rest in the peace of Christ, Frank.