7th sunday-A

Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time- A 

Good evening/morning everyone, once there was a man who was always bragging about his love for children. One day, he was pouring a new driveway of cement and some of the children in the neighborhood ran right through his freshly poured driveway. Some even wrote their names in the cement. When the man saw it, he got so mad and was screaming. Then one of his neighbor came over and said, "I thought you said you loved children". The man said, "Well, I do love them in the abstract, but I don't love them in the concrete". 

Today our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to be holy as God the Father is Holy. He teaches us four methods or ways to be holy like the Father. 

1. The first method is to abstain from all forms of retaliation:  In those days, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth method was applied. Some people love to take revenge and punish others for their wrong doings.  Gandhi once said, "If we apply an eye for an eye, soon the whole world will be blind" One day truck driver stooped at a restaurant for dinner and ordered a steak. Before he could eat it,  in walked a motorcycle gang. They took the man's steak and cut it in pieces and ate it. The truck driver said nothing. He simply paid the bill and walked out. One of the gang members said, "The man couldn't talk"  Another said, "He couldn't fight either". Then the waiter added saying, "I would say he couldn't driver either". On the way out of the parking lot, he ran over six motorcycle crushing all of them. Sometimes we love this kind of story of retaliation. But Christ calls us to forgive those who sins against us. 

2.  The second method of becoming holy as God is holy is to take the offense gracefully and love the offender: Christ our Lord says if anyone strikes us on one cheek, let us turn the other cheek too to him. If anyone wants to take our coat, let us give our cloak as well and if anyone forces us to walk a mile, let us walk an extra mile with that person and thus let him know that we are not offended in any way.  Once a 24 year old boy seeing out from the train's window shouted... "Dad, look the trees are going behind!". Dad smiled and a couple sitting nearby looked at the 24 year old's childish behavior with pity and the boy again said, "Dad, look the clouds are running with us". The couple could not resist and said to the old man...  

"Why don't you take your son to a good doctor?" The old man smiled and said,  "I did and we are just coming from the hospital. My son was blind from birth and he just got his eyes today".  Let us not judge or offend others, the truth might surprise you. 

3. The third method to be holy like the Father is by unconditionally and whole-heartedly forgiving the offender without planning revenge in any form: There is an old story about a woman going to her parish priest saying, "I had a vision and Jesus talked to me..." She kept coming to him every day and saying the same thing and one day to make sure that she was really having a vision, the priest said, "The next time when Christ appears to you. Ask him about my personal sins". She did come to him the next day and do you know what she said? She said, "Jesus Christ said that He forgot all your sins". That is called real forgiveness. Forgiveness is not only forgiving the offender but also forget what the person did. 

4. The fourth method to be holy like the Father is to dedicate ourselves to pray for our offenders' spiritual and physical welfare. 

Our body is the temple of the holy Spirit and as we want to experience the presence of God, it is our duty to forgive and accept others. The world will come to know that we belong to God only by the way we love and accept others. So let us love each other and bring His message of love and forgiveness to all. God bless. Amen.