Sitting with the Sacred

Readings for February 23, 2025:

All in one place:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm

In Context:

1. 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
2. Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13
3. 1 Corinthians 15:45-49
4. Luke 6:27-38

What’s the message I’m getting from this week’s readings:

. . . 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 your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:35

What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:

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.

Luke 6:29

This verse stands out to me because, as I read it, I can’t help but think how it can be misused. It can be interpreted as telling someone got to protect him or herself from abuse. But I don’t think this is the intended message. The verse I chose to highlight in the first section is the intended message.

In the New Testament, Jesus sometimes uses figurative language and even hyperbole to make a point. Remember the instruction in Matthew 18:9. It tells us to pluck an eye out if it causes us to sin. Do we really think Jesus wants us to do this? I don’t think so. The point of those verses is to tell us to avoid what we know isn’t good for ourselves, others, and for our relationship with God.

Other ways to express this week’s message might be: Don’t retaliate. Don’t take revenge. Don’t take advantage of others. Don’t be selfish. Taking any of this advice is different from accepting abuse. David had the opportunity to retaliate in this week’s first reading. He didn’t because he wasn’t being attacked. If he been under attack, he’d have been within his rights to protect himself. He could defend himself and/or remove himself from the situation. People have a right to defend themselves and other vulnerable people in their care who are in danger. They also have the right to remove themselves and others from such situations.

This week’s readings remind us again of the difference between wants and needs. They advise us not to withhold from someone something he or she needs because we want it.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Diana Macalintal’s reflection on the readings for February 23 is just what I need right now. I don’t think I’m alone in this assessment. She begins and ends her reflection with a personal story that involves her and her godson. I could picture the events unfolding as I read about them, and I found the little boy’s as well as Ms. Macalintal’s response so relatable. Click here to experience for yourself what I mean.

In Ms. Macalintal’s reflection, she also mentions details from the gospel accounts of Christ’s passion. These references remind me that I meant to wrestle with the events of the passion in the last section. I’ll just do that here instead of pretending I haven’t yet read her words.

So what do the events of Christ’s passion have to say about an individual who is having violence inflicted upon him? It’s an uncomfortable question because in the accounts of Jesus’ suffering and death, He doesn’t flee, and He doesn’t defend himself — not physically and not even verbally — at least not directly. I’m tempted to respond to these depictions with, “That’s because it was his mission and ministry to bear the consequences of our sins and weaknesses to the point of death so that these consequences might not have the final say in our lives and deaths. There’s only one Savior. To suffer and to die isn’t the mission of the rest of us.”

But isn’t it? At some point, in some way, just not in the same way Jesus did? No matter how much we try to avoid and resist it, life brings pain to us (along with pleasure) in many ways. Does this reality mean that to seek holiness is to seek pain? No, I think one understanding of what it means to be holy is to define it as being aware. To be holy means not pretending that what brings pain and what brings pleasure, what brings sorrow and what brings joy doesn’t exist. To be holy is to be awake, and to be awake is to be honest.

While I don’t have direct personal experience with the topic, it seems to me that forms of abuse are built on distorting who the people involved are. It seems to me that abusers operate under the illusion that they are entitled to more power than they actually are. It’s this sense of power that they crave. What gives them this sense power is making their victims believe their abusers have this power and making victims believe they deserve to be abused or that the abuse is somehow related to love.

In the passion accounts, Jesus never loses sight of who He is. He never agrees with what His abusers and attackers accuse Him of and say about Him. Rather, He asks His Father, to forgive them for what they do and for their blindness and ignorance as to what they are doing (Luke 23:34). He knows who really has the power during His crucifixion, even when he doesn’t feel that power accompanying him. Ultimately, He and the Father have that power.

When I think about the passion this way, I see it not as Him allowing himself to be robbed of his dignity and his life, but as Him giving us these two gifts freely. In His offering to us he shows the ultimate solidarity with every human frailty. He offers communion with Him to every human and to all of creation. I suppose having the freedom to do this is what gives Him the power to offer all the forms of surrender that Ms. Macalintal points to in her reflection.

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help us discern what we need and what we want we can better provide for others what they need. Also help us to pray for as we find it most difficult to pray for. Amen.

Scripture translation used:

“Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time — Lectionary: 81.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm.

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