God Happens: The Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025

                                                            God Happens:

The Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025 

February 23, 2025

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1 Samuel 26:2-23; Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38

  ^{To Donate to Boston Marathon – Healthcare for Homeless}

 

We get to the center of faith when we link the love of God with love of neighbor. King David learns this lesson when he had a chance to kill the prophet Saul and spared his life. David believed that God would reward each person according to his justice and faithfulness, and taking Saul’s life would not prove David’s faithfulness to God. David knew that Saul was precious to God and preserved his inherent dignity. The story is told that we may know of God’s presence in each person. David shows us the love means self-transcendence. 

 

Love of neighbor is equal to the love of God. This is a hard saying, and many people reveal that this is not their current practice, but a goal to which they may aspire. There are Catholics in every church building who do not like each other, who cannot speak to each other about religion, politics, and world problems. Day after day, we avoid difficult people and difficult topics, and we show open hostility and aggression when someone holds a thought we do not like. We must examine what we believe about our image of God, for we each have different ideas. Is this the way we prove our love for God? If these are the people closest to us, how will we regard those who wholeheartedly differ? Loving God and neighbor is perplexing. There are many times and experiences where we do not feel that God is present.

 

Conversely, we each have had a moment when we experienced the presence of God during interactions with others. God is present, God happens, when we love our neighbors. Jesus was asked who we should consider a neighbor, and he responded, “the one who gives mercy.” The one who gives mercy is the one who bothers to care for another person and enters into that person’s chaos. The invitation of Jesus, the one who loves God, says, “Make everyone your neighbor.” When we do so, we overcome the temptation to turn God into an object, an abstract idol, a remote being. When we love our neighbor, we likewise overcome the temptation to make humanity into an abstract idol, an object, “those people who are not us.” We have to discover love as an unconditional, all-embracing form of unification with God and all people, including our enemies. When we search for our responsibility for our neighbors, we break down the barriers between God and human beings, and then we break down the barriers between people. 

 

Jesus continually asks us to explore what Gospel love means, for it is different from most other loves we experience. A theologian from the Czech Republic writes, “This love is the courage to die for one’s selfishness, to forget oneself because of others, and to step out of oneself.” Love is transcendence. It causes us to expand and to cross over the borders of our existence. It is an impelling love that sees no limits, no frontiers, a force that has an energy to unite. King David experienced this when he contemplated the life of Saul. As believers, we can do the same when we speak with someone who thinks, acts, or looks differently from us. This love is a force that expands who we are and causes us to rise to the best of humanity – as we express our divinity. When we unite like this, God appears. God happens. We know in the core of our souls the rightness of this type of love. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (Sirach 1) All wisdom comes from the LORD and with him it remains forever, and is before all time the sand of the seashore, the drops of rain, the days of eternity: who can number these? 

 

Tuesday: (Sirach 2) My son, when you come to serve the LORD, stand in justice and fear,
prepare yourself for trials. Be sincere of heart and steadfast, incline your ear and receive the word of understanding, undisturbed in time of adversity.

 

Wednesday: (Sirach 4) Wisdom breathes life into her children and admonishes those who seek her. He who loves her loves life; those who seek her will be embraced by the Lord.

 

Thursday: (Sirach 5) Rely not on your wealth; say not: ""I have the power."" Rely not on your strength in following the desires of your heart. Say not: ""Who can prevail against me?"" or, ""Who will subdue me for my deeds?"" for God will surely exact the punishment.

 

Friday (Sirach 6) A kind mouth multiplies friends and appeases enemies, and gracious lips prompt friendly greetings. Let your acquaintances be many, but one in a thousand your confidant. When you gain a friend, first test him, and be not too ready to trust him.

 

Saturday (Sirach 17) God from the earth created man, and in his own image he made him. He makes man return to earth again and endows him with a strength of his own.
Limited days of life he gives him, with power over all things else on earth.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Mark 9) As Jesus came down from the mountain with Peter, James, John and approached the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. Immediately on seeing him, the whole crowd was utterly amazed.

 

Tuesday: (Mark 9) They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they remained silent. For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

 

Wednesday (Mark 9) "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us." Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.

 

Thursday (Mark 9) Jesus said to his disciples: ""Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

 

Friday (Mark 10) Jesus came into the district of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds gathered around him and, as was his custom, he again taught them. The Pharisees approached him and asked, ""Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?"" They were testing him.

 

Saturday (Mark 10) People were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

 

Saints of the Week

 

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. 

 

March 1: Katherine Drexel (1858-1955), was from a wealthy Philadelphian banking family and she and her two sisters inherited a great sum of money when her parents died. She joined the Sisters of Mercy and wanted to found her own order called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to work among the African and Native Americans. Her inheritance funded schools and missions throughout the South and on reservations. A heart attack in 1935 sent her into retirement. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• 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. 
• February 27, 1767. Charles III banished the Society from Spain and seized its property. 
• February 28, 1957. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps began. 
• March 1, 1549. At Gandia, the opening of a college of the Society founded by St Francis Borgia.