Today’s Gospel is a continuation of Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.” After listing the "beatitudes" - characteristics that identify His followers - Jesus gives His listeners a road map outlining how they are to live out their lives as His followers. "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Give to all who ask. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Stop judging. Stop condemning. Forgive." This is the path each one of us must follow. This is the journey of faith on which we find ourselves day after day.
But let’s face it. This is one of the most difficult teachings that we have received from Jesus on the practical living out of our faith. When we examine our own relationships, both with God and with our neighbor, we certainly realize how difficult it is for us to imitate the love of Jesus and put this into practice.
St. Paul tells us “we bear the image of God,” and we are called to forgive and not retaliate. We are called to be merciful, not vengeful. This is real heroism, and we are all called to it.
At the heart of our faith is a spirit of mercy leading us to acknowledge that it is God's love and goodness that provides so abundantly for all of our needs. This should be the springboard to caring for our brothers and sisters and sharing with them what we ourselves have been given.
There is no way we can claim to love God without being accountable to loving and serving others, who themselves are unique reflections of the presence of God. "We must feed hope through the force of gestures, instead of placing our hope in gestures of force. And we must at all costs shun any propaganda that instills fear of other people in the public mind." (Pope Francis, Hope, Random House, 2025)
This is the only way we can actually bear the image of God.
"The real question is not whether love begins at home. It's what we do with it — how far we are willing to change ourselves and the world around us." (Kat Armas, National Catholic Reporter, February 1, 2025) But before we dismiss this as too much to bear, we had better admit that the present policy we are following is getting us nowhere. This is why we must take to heart the last line of today’s gospel, “The measure by which you measure shall be in turn be measured out to you.” The Christian life is not about measuring one thing against another, or one person against another. It’s about imitating God, about being merciful to others because God is merciful.
Before we say that this is impossible, we had better think again — especially when we realize that the alternative is disaster.
