September 11, 2025
Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 440
Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another,
if one has a grievance against another;
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one Body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Responsorial Psalm
R.(6) Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the LORD in his sanctuary,
praise him in the firmament of his strength.
Praise him for his mighty deeds,
praise him for his sovereign majesty.
R. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise him with the blast of the trumpet,
praise him with lyre and harp,
Praise him with timbrel and dance,
praise him with strings and pipe.
R. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise him with sounding cymbals,
praise him with clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath
praise the LORD! Alleluia.
R. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
If we love one another,
God remains in us,
and his love is brought to perfection in us.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
"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.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you,
and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment,
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners,
and get back the same amount.
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.
"Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091125.cfm
Commentary on
Colossians 3:12-17
Today we have the final reading from this Letter and it is a
continuation of yesterday’s reading. After warning against some negative
behaviour in yesterday’s passage, Paul makes some beautiful statements today on
the kind of people the Colossian Christians should be.
The Colossians are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved”
and, because of that, they are to be clothed in “compassion, kindness,
humility, meekness, and patience.” When they ‘clothed’ themselves with Christ
at their baptism, all these qualities also needed to be part of what they
‘wore’.
Israel was the original Chosen People, but now the Christian
community shares this name. Being chosen by God is a constant theme in Paul’s
letter, but the Scriptures never teach that our being chosen frees us from
being responsible for our behaviour. We will not be saved against our will.
On the contrary, as Paul says here, it is precisely because
Christians have been chosen for eternal salvation that they must exert every
effort (with God’s grace) to live a life in harmony with the example set by
Christ. For Paul, divine kingship and human responsibility go hand in hand.
They are, he says, God’s “chosen ones, holy and beloved”
(Greek, hagioi meaning ‘set apart’ or ‘saint’). In saying
this, he does not mean that they are all canonisable; that was clearly not the
case. The term ‘saint’ was applied to the Christians in general. Their holiness
was less a matter of their own efforts than their having been sanctified
through Baptism and their incorporation into the Christian community. They were
‘holy’ by reason of their being called, being chosen. As Jesus told his
disciples at the Last Supper:
You did not choose me, but I chose you. (John
15:16)
The word hagios also implies someone who is
different, set apart from the common crowd. Christians, by their lifestyle, are
called to act as a counter-witness to the prevailing values of most
societies—the salt of the earth, the leaven in the dough.
Frictions, divisions and disunity can never be totally
avoided, but Paul says they must be dealt with by a high level of tolerance and
acceptance of others and a readiness for forgiveness and reconciliation. The
reason is simple:
…the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
The Gospel has much to say on this. Examples include Peter
being told to forgive 70 times 7 times, the parable of the unforgiving servant
(Matt 18:21-35), and the command to love our enemies, to pray for them and
bless them (Matt 5:44).
And so, the most important, the all-enveloping article of
clothing must be love:
…which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Love (Greek, agape) is the central commandment.
The ‘new’ commandment is that we love each other as Christ has loved us and the
greatest love is to give one’s life for one’s friends. With this in place,
everything else—absolutely everything else—is taken care of.
If all this is done, then the next prayer is likely to
become a reality:
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which
indeed you were called in one body.
Once we are totally united with Christ and his way of
living, then we are where we belong; we are responding to the deepest needs of
our being—the result can only be a sense of inner peace and harmony, even if
all round us there are storms. (That surely is the meaning of the story of the
disciples in the boat with Jesus in a stormy sea. With Jesus in the boat, there
came a great calm.)
And when that peace comes, let us also be thankful.
Gratitude is a sentiment that must surface constantly in the Christian heart as
gifts are piled on us one after the other, beginning with the very gift of life
and the gift of the Good News about Jesus. Our most important act together is
the celebration of the Eucharist. The word ‘eucharistia’ is Greek, meaning
‘thanksgiving’.
In the final part of the reading, Paul speaks about how the
Colossians should pray and worship together:
- Let
the Word of Christ, in all its richness, find a home in you.
This refers especially to Christ’s teaching, which in the time of the Colossians was still being transmitted orally. By implication and, especially for us, it includes the Old and the New Testaments. It is a sad fact that, for so many Catholics, the Word of Christ in the Scriptures does not find a home in their lives. For so long the teaching Church was so wary of ‘private interpretation’ that Catholics were discouraged from reading even the Gospels. It is a situation which urgently needs to be remedied and these commentaries on the daily Mass readings are intended to be a small contribution in that direction. - Teach
and admonish one another in all wisdom.
What we need is not just knowledge or information about our faith, but the wisdom which comes from deep insight into its meaning for our lives. There is also a wisdom in the whole group, which individuals do not have.
Again, for so many Catholics, ‘teaching’ is what goes on in
school under the heading of ‘religious knowledge’, but long experience has
shown that it all too often does very little to build up a deep faith and sense
of belonging in the Christian community. It is often totally divorced from both
family and parish life. In more recent times, there have been movements towards
more ‘faith sharing’ and ‘Bible sharing’. The whole of the liturgical
experience, too, and not just the homily, should be a mutually teaching
experience of what it means to belong to a Christian community.
- With
gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
Some of the most important doctrines were expressed in Christian hymns preserved for now only in Paul’s letters. “Psalms” could also describe a song newly composed for Christian worship (for example, see 1 Cor 14:26, where ‘hymn’ is written as ‘psalm’ in the Greek text). A “hymn” was a song of praise, especially used in a celebration, much like the Old Testament psalms that praised God for all that he is. A “song” recounted the acts of God and praised him for them, much like the Old Testament psalms that thanked God for all that he had done. “Spiritual songs” could be charismatic improvisations suggested by the Spirit during liturgical assembly.
Paul here is expressing our need to come together to pray
and share our faith and to praise and give thanks to our God and Jesus his Son.
Again, this is something to be done in a genuinely communal spirit of
celebration and prayer and not merely as the carrying out of a command or
obligation by an individual. For us, it concerns the way we conduct our
liturgies, especially that of the Eucharist.
For congregations where the vast majority could not read or
write, songs were an important part of worship and prayer and that is probably
the same in some parts of the world today. Literacy has had the very negative
effect, again in mainly Catholic circles, of reducing the role of music and
song in our worship, especially where the active participation of the congregation
is concerned. Yet, someone said very truly that “he who sings prays twice”. One
has only to attend Masses where there is no music and those where the whole
congregation sings (and even dances) to appreciate the difference. It is time
we took Paul’s advice more to heart.
Paul sums up his exhortation by urging that:
…whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the
name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
In our liturgies, every prayer we make to the Father is
made:
…through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Every single thing we Christians do is done for him. All is
for the greater glory of God. We try to seek and find and respond to him in every
experience, in every person we meet. We wish that our every thought, intention,
action and response be directed solely to the praise and service of our Lord.
Let us learn to be aware that every moment, every happening of our day is a
sacred point of contact with God.
So there are two short prayers we might make at the
beginning of every day:
- Grant,
Lord, that all my thoughts, words, actions and responses may be directed
solely to your love and service this day,
and
- Help
me, Lord, to seek, to find and to respond to you in every person and in
every experience of this day.
And, of course, these prayers can be repeated as a reminder
during the day. At the end of the day it is a good custom to make a brief
review of where we met Christ during the past day and how we responded to his
presence. It will be a time for praise, repentance, discernment and
thanksgiving.
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Commentary on Luke
6:27-38
For many people, even those who identify themselves as
Christians, this may be one of the most difficult passages in the Gospel. It
seems to express an idealism that is totally unrealistic and unattainable.
We live today in a world of terrible violence, of murder, of
terrorism—the horror of attacks on the innocent, of vicious vendettas often
stirred up in the press (especially the tabloids) and internet media, of
rampant litigation—suing and counter-suing. Are these things not to be avenged?
Where do Jesus’ words fit in? It is worth noting that the
passage begins:
I say to you who are listening…
In order to understand what Jesus is really saying to us, we
have to put aside our prejudices and assumptions and really listen to what he
is saying. This passage, in particular, is one where we are likely to react
emotionally.
Jesus says:
Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless
those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.
We may feel that to follow this teaching is to try something
which is totally beyond our capacity, that it would require a tremendous amount
of will-power, and that it would only encourage those people to behave even
worse. In the Old Testament, hatred of evildoers is presumed to be the right
attitude to have. But Jesus is extending love to the enemy and the persecutor.
This is the core of Jesus’ teaching, which he himself
practised. The Golden Rule, which is sometimes expressed as “Do not do to
others what you would not want them to do to you”, is expressed here in
positive terms.
The first big hurdle is the word “love”. For us, it is a
very emotional word, implying both affection and intimacy. For us, in English,
to ‘love’ is most often associated with to ‘be in love with’, to ‘be attracted
to’, to ‘desire’. But Jesus is not telling us to be in love with our enemies.
He is not even telling us to like them. The Greek verb which the Gospel uses
is agapao from which the noun agape comes. Agape [pronounced
‘ah-gah-pay’] is a special kind of love. It is not the physically-expressed
love of lovers, nor is it the love of close friends. It is rather an attitude
of positive regard towards other people by which I wish for their well-being.
This, in fact, is the love that God has for us. It is a
one-sided love in the sense that a return is not expected. God reaches out in
infinite love to every single person without exception. God wishes every person
to experience that love; God wishes the fullest well-being of every single
person. That love of his is often not returned; it is often rejected or
ignored.
But it continues unabated, like the father in the story of the
prodigal son waiting for his boy to come back. The father continued to love his
son even in his lowest moments of debauchery and degradation. It was the same
with the people who were nailing Jesus to the cross. He prayed for them—for
their being forgiven—and that they might come to a realisation of just what
they were doing. In this sense, loving our enemies seems altogether reasonable.
And not only not impossible, but really the only thing to do.
Who are our “enemies”? First of all, they are not our enemies
in the sense that we hate them or want to harm them. In that sense, a Christian
should have no enemies. Rather, enemies are people who are hostile to us. They
want to harm us, take revenge on us, even destroy us. There are two ways we can
deal with such people. We can set out to do more harm to them, to take revenge
on them, or try to wipe them out completely. Or we can try and work to turn
them round.
Our problem is that we tend to focus too much on ourselves
and our own immediate needs, and overlook the needs of others. To love as God
loves is to focus more on others. We can only do this if we have a strong inner
sense of security and self-acceptance. Then we are not too worried about what
people say about us or do to us.
And then, too, we can turn our attention much more to the
one who is hating or harming. We will begin to ask why do they have to act in
this way. What is hurting inside them that drives them to such behaviour?
Already we are, just by thinking in this way, beginning to care for our enemy
and beginning to love him or her. And is not this a much better solution to the
problem? Is it not better to bring peace back into that person’s life and
initiate a healing process in them and between them and us?
Jesus is not at all asking us to do something ‘unnatural’.
We do not naturally want to hate or be hated. We want to love and to be loved.
We see many parts of the world where, for years, there has been a process of
hatred and retaliation in a never-ending spiral of vengeance and loss of life.
The only way to break this cycle is to follow Jesus’ advice. It is not a
lose-lose or lose-win situation; it is a win-win situation where everyone
benefits.
Perhaps words of the late St Teresa of Calcutta (Mother
Teresa) are appropriate here:
“Love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give
whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them.
This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no
love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.”
To put Jesus’ teaching into effect is not a matter of
strengthening our will to do something very difficult, but to change our
conventional thinking at the deepest level, to see things his way. Once we do
that, it becomes much easier.
Jesus’ application of this teaching has also been the
subject of much mockery:
If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also,
and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
We think that in a world where macho reigns, this is just
too much! Only wimps would follow Jesus’ advice because they are afraid to do
anything else! Our movie ‘heroes’ know what to do in such cases: mow them down,
knock them out, blow them up!
Again, it is a question of seeing things from Jesus’, that
is, God’s viewpoint. Turning the other cheek, as it is presented here, is not
at all an act of weakness. It requires great courage and great inner strength
and an awareness that the one who strikes is the one who is really weak. It is
easy to lash out at another person by word or act. It is easy to hit back; it
is almost an instinctive reaction, but it is not the truly human response.
To hit back is to reduce oneself to the same level as one’s
attacker, and it solves nothing in the long run. Deliberately and calmly not to
hit back is to refuse (in the words of Canadian-born psychiatrist, Eric Berne)
“to play the other person’s game”. It is to break the cycle and change the
level of the playing field and move it to a higher level—the level of mutual
respect and human dignity.
Jesus set the example when he was struck on the face during
his trial. During the whole degradation of the Passion his dignity shines out,
in contrast to the pathetic posturings of his judges and tormentors. This was
the spirit that guided some leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King
Jr, and which is behind all movements devoted to active non-violence.
Jesus lived the example of the principle: ‘Treat others as
you would like them to treat you’. You do not want to be hated or struck so you
refuse, no matter what happens, to hate or strike another person. He also said:
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to
you? For even sinners love those who love them.
So no, we will not react simply in the way others deal with
us. As followers of Christ, we see things in a completely different way and we
want to behave differently. We believe that not only do we personally benefit
from following Jesus’ way, but that others too will benefit and may even come
to our point of view.
Finally, Jesus calls us to follow the model of God himself:
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
In Matthew’s Gospel it is written:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is
perfect.
(Matt 5:48)
The meaning is the same: our perfection consists in our
empathetic reaching out in compassionate agape to every single
person. And, through us, the compassion of God can then be experienced by
people.
We are not to judge or condemn persons. (This is not the
same as being asked and required to give an objective and discerned evaluation
of a person’s behaviour or fitness for some task or position; behavior does
have consequences.) And we are to forgive. Then we will not be condemned, and
we will in turn receive forgiveness.
The emphasis is on reaching out to others rather than
gathering for ourselves and being turned in on our little, insecure selves.
Jesus says:
Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be
given to you.
Jesus put this graphically when he told us to give not only
our cloak to someone asking for it but our tunic as well. Given that the poor
in those days only had two garments, that would leave the donor totally naked!
But that is the point—the one filled with the spirit of
Christ has nothing to lose, nothing of which to be ashamed. Life consists in
what we are able to give and not what we can get. Jesus says to us:
…the measure you give will be the measure you get back.
And that, above all, applies to agape-love.
Everyone can give an endless supply of that.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1235g/
Thursday,
September 11, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
God our Father, You redeem us and make
us Your children in Christ. Look upon us, give us true freedom and bring us to
the inheritance You promised.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus
Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God,
forever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 6: 27-38
Jesus said to his disciples: "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. To the person who strikes
you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes
your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you,
and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as
you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit
is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to
those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that
to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather,
love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then
your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he
himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as also
your Father is merciful. "Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop
condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken
down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which
you measure will in return be measured out to you."
Reflection
In today’s Gospel we have the second part of
the “discourse on the plain.” In the first part (Lk 6: 20-26), Jesus addresses
Himself to the disciples (Lk 6: 20). In the second part (Lk 6: 27-49), He
addresses Himself “to you who listen to Me,” that is, the great crowds of poor
and sick people, who had come from all parts (Lk 6: 17-
19).
•
Luke 6: 27-30: Love your enemies! The words that
Jesus addresses to these people are demanding and difficult: to love your
enemies, not to curse them, to present the other cheek to anyone who slaps you
on one cheek, and do not protest or complain when somebody takes what is yours.
Taken literally, these commands seem to favor the rich who rob, but not even
Jesus observes them literally. When the soldier struck Him on the face, He did
not offer the other cheek but rather reacted firmly: “If there is some offense
in what I said, point it out, but if not why do you strike Me?” (Jn 18: 22-23).
Then, how are these words to be understood? The following verses help us to
understand what Jesus wants to teach us.
•
Luke 6: 31-36: The Golden Rule! to imitate God.
Two sayings of Jesus help us to understand what He wants to teach. The first
saying is the so-called Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would like people to
treat you!” (Lk 6: 31). The second saying is “Be merciful as your Father in
Heaven is merciful!” (Lk 6: 36). These two directives indicate that Jesus does
not want simply to change the situation, because nothing would change. He wants
to change the system. The novelty which He wants to construct comes from the
new experience of God the Father, full of tenderness who accepts all! The words
of threat against the rich cannot be the occasion of revenge on the part of the
poor! Jesus demands the contrary attitude: “Love your enemies!” Love cannot
depend on what I receive from others. True love should want the good of others,
independently of what he or she does for me. Love should be creative, because
that is how God’s love is for us: “Be merciful, as your Heavenly Father is
merciful!” Matthew says the same thing with other words: “Be perfect as your
Father in Heaven is perfect” (Mt 5: 48). Never will anyone be able to say,
“Today I have been perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect! I have been
merciful as the Father in Heaven is merciful.” We will always be below the
measure which Jesus has placed before us.
•
In Luke’s Gospel, the Golden Rule says, “Treat
others as you would like people to treat you!” (Lk 6: 31). Matthew, in his
Gospel, gives a different formulation: “Treat others as you would like others
to treat you.” And he adds, “That is the Law and the Prophets” (Mt 7: 12).
Practically, all religions in the whole world have the same Golden Rule with a
diverse formulation. This is a sign that a universal intuition or desire is
expressed which comes from God and is part of our being in the image of God.
•
Luke 6: 37-38: “Do not judge and you will not be
judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be
forgiven; give and there will be gifts for you; a full measure, pressed down,
shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the
standard you use will be the standard used for you.” These are four counsels:
two in a negative form, do not judge and do not condemn; and two in positive
form: to forgive and to give an abundant measure. When He says, “there will be
gifts for you,” Jesus refers to the treatment which God wants to bestow on us.
But when our way of treating others is mean, God cannot use with us the
abundant and overflowing measure that He would want to use.
•
Celebrate the visit of God. The Discourse on the
Plains or the Sermon on the Mount, from the beginning, leads the listeners to
make a choice, to opt, in favor of the poor. In the Old Testament, several
times, God placed before people this same choice, blessing or curse. People
were given the freedom to choose: “Today I call heaven and earth to witness
against you: I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life,
then, so that you and your descendants may live” (Deut 30: 19). It is not God
who condemns, but the people themselves according to the choice that they make
between life and death, good or evil. These moments of choosing are moments of
the visit of God to His people (Gen 21: 1; 50: 24-25); Ex 3: 16; 32: 34; Jr 20:
10; Ps 65: 10; Ps 80: 15; Ps 106: 4). Luke is the only Evangelist who uses this
image of the visit of God (Lk 1: 68, 78; 7: 16; 19: 44; Acts 15: 16). For Luke
it is the visit of God which places the choice between blessing or curse before
people: “Blessed are you who are poor” and “Alas for you, the rich!” But people
do not recognize the visit of God (Lk 19: 44).
Personal Questions
• Do we look
at life and at people with the same viewpoint as Jesus?
• What does
it mean today “be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful”?
• Am I as
literal as Jesus in love and mercy, or do I rationalize it away and
compartmentalize it so it doesn’t apply to situations in my
life?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh, You examine me and know me, You
know when I sit, when I rise, You understand my thoughts from afar. You watch
when I walk or lie down, You know every detail of my conduct. (Ps 139: 1-3)
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