TO BUILD BRIDGES
Are we a people who build bridges? Pope Francis in his recent written Homily at last Sunday’s Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica calls us to build bridges where we live at a time when new walls are being erected, when differences become a pretext for division rather than an opportunity for mutual enrichment. The readings today reflect the importance and teachings of love for our enemies, mercy, and forgiveness in our lives, so as to repair and build those bridges.
In the first reading 1 Samuel 26, David chose to spare the life of Saul for the second time, though he had an opportunity to kill Saul and to end his own suffering. Saul, due to resentment, rivalry, and envy conspires and pursues David relentlessly. We see that envy and resentment can drive a person like Saul to bitterness and result in disunity; at a time when Israel was at war with the Philistines. David by choosing reconciliation rather than retaliation and division, extends a hand of peace, embracing forgiveness that will be perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. David’s mercy towards Saul illustrates how Jesus wants His disciples to love their enemies. We, like Saul, are spared by God’s mercy despite our sins. Jesus urges us to be merciful like our Heavenly Father.
In the Gospel reading of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6: 27-38), Jesus taught his disciples to love their enemies, to do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you. These teachings go against our innate human behaviours, actions and our desire of fairness and justice. We are asked to operate differently as the world operates; as what credit is it to us, since sinners do the same in loving those who love them and do good to those who do good to them.
Daily we read and hear of the ongoing wars, division, and destruction. In everyday living, we encounter personal conflicts and brokenness in the family, the workplace, and relationships. While we know there are inevitably opposing views, what is our attitude when we face these? We could confront these with anger, bitterness, stay emotionally scarred and never heal. In looking up the definition of forgiveness, it is a conscious, deliberate decision to not hit back, to release feelings of resentment and hurts towards others; regardless of whether they deserve our forgiveness. In Matthew 18: 21-22, we are called to forgive endlessly, constantly, without calculation, as when Peter asks Jesus “how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said “not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
By forgiving, we free ourselves from anger, hurts, resentment; remembering that God loves and forgives all, including those who have wronged us. While it is difficult, this helps us see and treat everyone as a person created in God’s image, to act with goodwill towards them and to seek their highest good.
We learn that in ancient times when a judgement was carried out, the sentence was to strike the cheek of the accused or weaker party for offences and demands of one’s cloak as collateral were practised. By turning the other cheek and not refusing our tunic or shirt, we choose to let go of things of this world; and to hold to what God has given us with open hands. Jesus himself demonstrates how to turn the other cheek when he allows enemies to falsely accuse, arrest, convict, strike him and to die on a cross. He is not passive, unwilling nor a powerless victim, accepting the malicious treatment; knowing they have no ability to take His life. He does not judge them, retaliate for harm done to him; rather in loving his enemies and prays for them to his dying breath, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). As Pope Francis in his Angelus in 2022, said “turning the other cheek is not the withdrawal of the loser, but the action of one who has a greater inner strength, who defeats evil with good, who opens up a breach in the heart of the enemy, unmasking the absurdity of his hatred. It is dictated not by calculation, but by love.” Praying for someone can bring about healing over division and to help bear one another’s burdens. By following Jesus’ teaching we open our hearts to God’s grace and peace.
By grace, we are invited to give not only in material goods, but through our compassion and patience without expecting anything in return. This reflects God’s love for us. In Luke 6:38, in giving yourself away and to let God use you, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be poured into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
St. Pope John Paul II in his General Audience on 26 August 1998 said Christ teaches “if man is the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake, man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself” (Vatican II Gaudium Et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, n. 24). In this teaching of St. Pope John Paul II called the Law of the Gift, a paradox that the more of ourselves we give away and we let go, the fuller we become. Rather than turning in on ourselves, in putting up walls or to go into survival mode; we ask God for the grace to practise the law of the gift, to be open to the people God places in our life and to reflect God’s love for us.
Changing our hearts can help make us more like Christ. Shall we strive to build bridges, even to take small steps every day of our lives? This will go towards helping to restore the harmony that God intended for humanity since the start of creation. Do take a moment to listen in to the hymn “Prayer of St. Francis” which reminds us to change our hearts, to be more like Christ by loving our enemies, showing mercy, by giving without expecting anything in return, seeking peace and of our call to follow Jesus by loving others.
(click on the link above)
Make me a channel of Your peace
Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love
Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in You
Make me a channel of Your peace
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy
Oh Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul
Make me a channel of Your peace
It is pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal life
Article by Olivia Tan, HFC Blog Contributor