First week of Lent: Saturday of 1st week of Lent
“You have heard it said You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends rain to fall down on the upright and the wicked alike.” Jesus invites us to love, without counting, for it is really compassion which is the measure of true love. God is Love, He “causes the sun to rise on the bad as well as the wicked and sends rain to fall down on the upright and wicked alike”, and mankind who is at the image of God, has each day to become like Him“so as to be truly a child of the Heavenly Father.” In our daily life today, where do we find the face of Christ? It is in our neighbour, the person next to us. It is quite easy to feel compassion for children afflicted with hunger or for immigrants landing on our coasts. When Jesus says “In the past it was said..” it certainly means the Word of God, but it also means our own past, our education, all this can prevent us from moving forward into the Light. Converted, we celebrate the New life in Jesus, nourished by His Body and Blood, His Very Life. We contemplate Him and want, like Him, to act as He did : ’Love your enemies!’ With Him, we can live the ’today’ of God, Who is amongst us. In His Infinite Love for us, Jesus asks us to do as He did : ’Do this in memory of me.’
“For if you love those who love you, what reward shall you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? and if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much?”
It is easy to love someone who loves you, but Jesus wants us to go beyond that, because “If you love those who love you what reward will you have?”…To love our enemies, we can give ourselves, following Jesus, dying on the cross and forgiving those who crucify him. He does not reproach them, he does not complain, he makes no bad gestures! We want to enter into this way of doing things, certain that God responds to our prayer which is joined to the prayer of Jesus Our Saviour. Our desire is our prayer, it is the to accomplish in gestures the Tenderness and Mercy of our God. This is how we celebrate the Eucharist, giving thanks to God and living from the Infinite Love in the Heart of God…. Jesus loved us and thus went as far as dying on the Cross for us, whereas we were his enemies and rejected him, treating him a s a criminal! His Passion brought us back again into the Infinite Love of our Fathers Heart.
“You, therefore, be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Loving, expecting nothing in return, perfection consists of loving incommensurably. In the midst of the world in which we live and amidst our daily occupations, we have perfection at hand : by doing what we have to do at each moment, not what
we would like to do. At the wedding feast of Cana, the Mother of God realized that the guests had run out of wine. She moves forward.She asks the Lord to perform a miracle. Let us, too, ask for the miracle of knowing how to discover him through the needs of others. We want to rekindle the Covenant Jesus has created with us, this “Do this in memory” that he asks and is celebrated in the Eucharist. We give thanks for what Jesus asked us to do. "This”, that is His sacrifice on the Cross, the gift of his Life for us. “This” is the coming of Jesus in human flesh, God amongst mankind. “This” is our salvation where he heals and saves us. “This” is his Resurrection from the dead which gives us his Life for ever more. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we relive the memory of ur Salvation and place ourselves at the school of Jesus, Our Saviour.