Welcome

Archabbot Lambert Reilly, OSB, one of the former archabbots of Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Southern Indiana, has always been known for his witty one-liners and comebacks. This was true during his tenure as archabbot, and it is true to this very day. One of these one-liners he became well-known for around the monastery is that “we have to love everyone, we don’t have to like everyone.” I may be paraphrasing, but his message rings true especially with today’s Gospel reading. To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If Jesus told us to love those who love us, it would be easy. In fact, we would probably do a pretty good job at that. However, Jesus did not say to love our friends. He told us to love our enemies. To some degree, we all have some sort of enemy. Maybe it is the coworker who constantly critiques the hard work we have done. Maybe it is the neighbor who constantly annoys us, and if we are honest, we probably annoy them too. Maybe it is a member of our family who we had a spat with years ago, and we both seem to struggle with letting that live in the past. We kid ourselves if we cannot, or will not, identify one person with whom we have a sour relationship. Love your enemies . It can be tempting for us to forget this call when we would rather hold a grudge. Equally, it can be tempting for us to think this cannot be done given the history we have with another. Perhaps we can look to the example Jesus Himself sets for us in loving our enemies. Later on in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus, enduring the absolute pain of the Cross, offers the simple prayer: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do . In this supreme act of charity, interceding on behalf of sinners, Jesus provides us the model for love. In fact, the entire Passion, Death, and Resurrection shows us the model for love. It is the offering of mercy to the other. This offering of mercy is best summarized and explained by St. Thomas Aquinas in writing on love. Love is distilled by St. Thomas Aquinas into the phrase: “to love anything is nothing else than to will good to that thing.” We love by willing good to others. It is why we as Christians should seek to practice the works of mercy. As God has loved us, willed our good, through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, we should seek to live the same radical love. This form of love is by far the most difficult and only reaches its perfection with the help of God. Now, let us go back for a moment to Fr. Archabbot Lambert’s line. Certainly, we have received a divine call to love, but at the same time, we know it is impossible to be everybody’s friend. In fact, it would be unhealthy in many cases to strive for this. After all, we are humans, and we face limitations. These limitations include the emotions and history we carry from our interactions with each other. Indeed, there are particular situations in which it is prudent for us to not foster any sort of relationship with another person. We could probably come up with a good list of situations in which this prudence takes precedence. God never wants us to put ourselves in unnecessary danger of any sort, physical or emotional. The Gospel call to radical love still remains for us. Maybe Archabbot Lambert’s one-liner is a good challenge for us. Who do we need to learn to love as God calls us to love? Fr. Alex McCullough