Inflicting wounds upon others for the hurt you’ve experienced will only result in a bloody and wounded world. Would you want such a world as your home? #Reflectonthis #Dailyreflection https://youtu.be/ZautE0TJq_g

Scripture Reading:
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Reflection:

When you hurt someone’s eye because your eye has been hurt by that person, then it a result of the urgent or immediate urge in your heart to get justice for the wrong done to you. In other words you are quick to take revenge for being hurt by someone. This system of justice which gives an eye for an eye is not just a proverb but in fact an ancient law, practiced even in our modern world. Lex talions or Law of revenge or law of retaliation existed from as long as the 18th century BC. Hammurabi, a Babylonian king preserved this law along with other laws on a pillar which was discovered 1901 and is on display in Louve.


In today’s gospel, our Blessed Lord is giving us a new law, which is desires to inscribe on our hearts and not on some pillar on a book. On our hearts because this law is not merely a code of conduct but a lifestyle. A lifestyle which is far more difficult to practice than a tough rule the are expected to comply with. Lex talions permits an eye only for an injured eye, a hand only for an injured hand. It does not permit a head for an injured eye or murdering a person because he injured your a hand. Our Lord on the other hand teaches us by example, a new code of life, which is to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.


Right now, at this very moment, if you are thinking of that person who has wounded you deeply. Someone whom you might think deserves great pain or even death for that matter for the sorrow and suffering he or she has caused you or your dear ones. If this is what you might be desiring for the one who hurt you, why should you shy away from the same code of justice for yourself from God for having hurt God with your sin? God alone is the doer of justice. By abandoning the person who hurt you to the justice of God is a great act of mercy on your part towards that person.



My dear friends, our Blessed Lord is inviting you to the lifestyle which makes us children of our Father in heaven. God has given us a heart made in the image and likeness of God’s heart. The measure of love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness, forbearance and patience, self control and acceptance of the human heart filled with God is mighty and extraordinary. Loving those who love you back will make you feel good. Loving those who hurt you back will make you a saint.


God bless you!