"Easy" Instructions

When I heard the readings at Mass this morning, my first thought was “It sounds like the assembly instructions to Ikea furniture…simple, but you know it’s not going to be that easy!”

There are two very different ways of addressing people and events in our lives—we can either react or we can respond—each with dramatically different results.

God calls us to love; “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you!” (Luke 6:27)—but at the same time, He reminds us that it takes an enormous amount of strength and courage to fully answer this call to love—As Paul says, “to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient and forgiving to all” (Colossians 3:12-13).

There is nothing extraordinary about loving those who are caring and generous toward us. At some point in our lives we will encounter people who are deceitful, unkind and selfish. When this happens our natural tendency is to retaliate and defend oneself against them.

But the words and deeds of Christ teach a path that is different to that of violence, hatred or revenge—it is a path that demands us to face the injustice of our world with the courage and strength that come from trusting that our ultimate victory will be with God if we obey His command to love anyway.

So when we look back at our lives and the major influences that brought us to where we are today, do we find that we are passively reacting to the people and events we find along the way or are we responding with love, as Jesus taught us?