Treating each other with dignity
The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 20, 2022
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1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9; Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38
Every faith tradition carries some aspect of the Golden Rule: Do no harm; Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and yet it is so hard to live up to that teaching. Then Jesus compounds it by adding: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. It is an equally hard teaching, and sometimes it is easier to love the anonymous neighbor than it is to love those who are closer to you.
King David shows us how it is nobly done. He had a chance to take his adversary Saul’s life and thereby end the threat against his own life, but David realized that Saul was God’s anointed and would not harm him. Perhaps that is the key for us when we see people who are competitive with us or aggressive. We night need to change how we view the person so that we see them, not as an opponent, but as a child of God who share in our common humanity.
Our newsmakers will focus on the battle between warring factions and will hope for one side to be victorious. In our sports world, we focus upon being the best or the most clever to gain competitive advantaged. Our best-selling books will tout success as rising above the mediocrity of human experience so that we can be at the very top, often at the expense of others. Our biblical stories tell us that people of faith ought to have different values. We need a worldview that is consistent with our faith life. We need to be counter cultural.
The question is how to do it, and the answer begins with our thoughts. Our first activity is to generate a thought. From that thought flows, an attitude, then a word, then an action. Everything points back to our fundamental worldview. At the Second Vatican Council, the thoughts of the Bishops and Cardinals changed, and then they produced a document and constitution that is nothing short of miraculous.
In it, a new vision of Catholicism appeared and we can use this as a model for our daily life. The Council moved:
from commands to invitations,
from laws to ideals,
from definition of ideas to beholding a mystery,
from issuing threats to persuading by invitation,
from coercion and force to forming one’s conscience,
from monologue to dialogue,
from ruling to serving,
from withdrawing from the world to integrating itself into it,
from excluding people to a spirit of welcome and inclusion,
from hostility to friendship,
from rivalry to partnership,
from suspicion to trust,
from static and unchanging to ongoing, dynamic progression,
from passive acceptance to active engagement,
from fault-finding to appreciation,
from behavior modification to inner-appropriation....
We have to decide how we want to be. Changing our worldview means that we have the ability to shape our thoughts and then everything else will follow. We know that we cannot change others, but we can change the way we see and perceive, and that makes all the difference. People will respond to the way we treat them, and if we treat them well, they will treat us kindly as well. King David had the idea to get rid of his adversary, and then he thought better of it. We can make the same adjustments. King David’s solitary action was a model for Israel. Our solitary action might not make big waves in the world, but it will bring us into right relations, and that is enough, and I guarantee you that your solitary action will have a lasting effect upon someone, and that will bring hope and further love into this world. We change hearts one at a time, and we begin with our own. Grace will follow.
Scripture for Daily Mass
Monday: (James 1) Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Tuesday: (James 1) Blessed is he who perseveres in temptation, for when he has been proven he will receive the crown of life that he promised to those who love him.
Wednesday: (James 1) Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger for anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God.
Thursday: (James 2) Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you dishonored the poor.
Friday (James 2) See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
Saturday (James 3) Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna.
Gospel:
Monday: (Mark 8) He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” Then he left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.
Tuesday: (Mark 8) The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
Wednesday (Mark 8) He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on the man and asked, “Do you see anything?” Looking up the man replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.”
Then he laid hands on the man’s eyes a second time and he saw clearly.
Thursday (Mark 8) Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
Friday (Mark 8) Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the Gospel will save it.
Saturday (Mark 9) Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.
Saints of the Week
February 21: Peter Damian, bishop and Doctor (1007-1072), was orphaned and raised by his brother, Damian, a priest in Ravenna. He began as a hermit monk and was then made abbot and cardinal. He became a reformer in the church often speaking out against clerical laxness.
February 22: The Chair of Peter is celebrated on this day. Previously, both Peter and Paul were remembered until their feast was transferred to June 29th. As the custom was ingrained in practice, Christians continued to honor the contributions Peter made to the church as the first of the apostles in continuous succession.
February 23: Polycarp, bishop and martyr (69-155), was made bishop of Smyrna and was the leader of the second generation Christians. He was a disciple of the apostle John and a friend of Ignatius of Antioch. He wrote catechesis and rites for initiation into the Christian community. He was martyred in 155 and is a Father of the early church.
This Week in Jesuit History
- February 20, 1860. Pope Pius IX visits the rooms of St Ignatius.
- February 21, 1595. At Tyburn, the martyrdom of Robert Southwell after he had suffered brutal tortures in Topcliffe's house and in prison. He embraced the jailer who brought him word that he was to be executed. As he breathed his last, Lord Mountjoy, who presided over the execution, exclaimed: "May my soul be one day with that of this man."
- February 22, 1599. By order of Pope Clement VIII, the superiors general of the Jesuits and the Dominicans, assisted by others, met to settle, if possible, the controversies about grace. Nothing came of the meeting, since the Dominicans insisted on the condemnation of the writings of Fr. Molina.
- February 23, 1551. The Roman College, the major school of the Society later to become the Gregorian University, began its first scholastic year with 15 teachers and 60 students.
- February 24, 1637. The death of Francis Pavone. Inflamed by his words and holy example, sixty members of a class of philosophy that he taught and the entire class of poetry embraced the religious state.
- February 25, 1558. St Aloysius Gonzaga received tonsure at the Lateran basilica. Within the next month he would receive the minor orders.
- February 26, 1611. The death of Antonio Possevino, sent by Pope Gregory XIII on many important embassies to Sweden, Russia, Poland, and Germany. In addition to founding colleges and seminaries in Cracow, Olmutz, Prague, Braunsberg, and Vilna, he found time to write 24 books.
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