2nd Sunday Lent C - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2022

In today’s Gospel passage, Luke wrote of Jesus, “As he prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning.” I suppose that Luke was seeking to say that, as Jesus engaged with God through prayer, he became more noticeably like God. Perhaps, in today’s Epistle, Paul was taking his cue from the Gospel narrative when he said something similar about the Philippians. As they came increasingly under the influence of Jesus, Jesus would make them become more like himself — not physically but interiorly.

Perhaps, it is like a lot of people who genuinely love: they tend to become like the one they love. As disciples of Jesus learn to love, they grow, too, they mature, and their effect on others deepens.

At the moment, our TV news bulletins are full of images and interviews of people in Ukraine.

This has led me to ask myself the question whether there will be more love or hostility in my heart by the time that the conflict in Ukraine comes to an end. It is so easy to take sides. My tendency is almost automatic.

I am not alone. Already people are doing so all around the world. What good does barracking serve? I fall recklessly, without thinking, into attitudes of negative judgment and condemnation when confronted with behaviour that I do not agree with. Sadly, so many others do the same thing. The contribution that each of us individually makes to the quantity and prevalence of aggressiveness and anger in the world is almost infinitesimal — but not quite. Together, the mood deepens around us; and the muted rage and hostility oppressing us become more and more universal and entrenched. The attitude necessarily infects also the hearts and minds of national leaders, who, almost instinctively, think spontaneously of war and mutual destruction as the appropriate response to international injustice and conflict.

Was it madness for Jesus to say, Love your enemy? No! Is it possible? Yes! Love at its purest is a decision, not a feeling or an attitude. How else could God love us all? love any of us? We can deliberately choose to love another with whom we strongly disagree.But to respond that way in fact, we also need genuine inner freedom. Experience shows that such freedom does not come easily. In order to succeed in loving, we need constant, deliberate practice in cultivating the necessary self-discipline. Love can then become a habit, a welcome virtue.

Jesus not only said, “Love your enemy”. He followed that up with, “Pray for those who persecute you”. Well, people are not persecuting me — but I can, and I shall, pray — for change in myself, that I might view human persons and love them as Jesus does.

And, at the same time, I shall pray for everyone, because the deepest obstacle to peace in Ukraine, to peace everywhere, is lethally infectious but unconscious mutual hostility. It lurks in the hearts of all of us around the world.

The less we realise it, the more dangerous we are.