Brothers and sisters, have you ever come to Mass only to be distracted by someone in another pew? Maybe they’re singing off key, or breathing loudly, coughing right over your baby, or their baby is crying right in your ear? Have you ever wanted to turn around scold them a bit?
Well, St Therese of Lisieux could relate. This young Carmelite nun recounts a story that during silent prayer one day another nun who was sitting right behind her was repeatedly making an annoying clicking noise.
Click – click – click
Therese tried to focus on prayer, but she couldn’t. She wanted to turn around, and glare at the nun so she would stop. But instead, she offered this annoying noise as a sacrifice to Jesus – she thought he would accept it as a beautiful musical concert.
There is profound wisdom here, in the teaching of our youngest Doctor of the Church. It echoes the Gospel for today – Jesus’ profound and challenging teaching to turn our cheeks and love our enemies.
Our Gospel today follows the text from last Sunday’s Gospel. Both are drawn from Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain – which is Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount.
As a brief aside: Maybe some of you, especially our young people, are wondering – wait, which was it – a plain or a mountain? When I was younger, I used to mark my Bible [this one] with lots of little question marks – why does this verse seem to contradict that other later verse? It took a good deal of study for me to resolve these doubts. Certainly, if anyone here is struggling with doubts of faith about apparent contradictions in Scripture, or other questions about our Faith, please reach out to Fr Mike, Fr Jonathan, or I, and we’d be happy to discuss at length. But to give the short version: the Gospel writers are not trying to give a literal word-by-word account of every little detail – this isn’t social media livestream journalism. Notice the Gospels never describe if the apostles are tall or short or blonde or brunette. Did Jesus speak on a plain, or on a mountain, or was it sort of plateau? We don’t know, but frankly this detail is not so important. What matters is the spiritual truths, the message the Holy Spirit is conveying.
The crux of the matter is Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies – this is the ‘new commandment’ which goes beyond the 10 Commandments. Not ‘an eye for an eye’, but ‘turn the other cheek.’ If someone takes your cloak, give him your tunic. This is striking stuff.
Too often we hear Jesus’ shocking words, and we want to sanitize them. We don’t really need to turn our cheek or give away our cloak. Any good theologian would tell you, if a robber breaks into your home and threatens violence to your family, you absolutely can and should defend them – with force if necessary. This is Catholic just war theory.
Or maybe you’re like me and thinking, ‘I mean, I don’t have any real enemies. I don’t have a death wish on anyone.’
But Jesus’ teachings aren’t meant to be sanitized or dumbed down, so we can continue to live our lives complacently. (You know who wants us to dumb down Jesus’ teaching? Ask the children - Who wants us to ignore Jesus? Who? That’s right, the Devil. So don’t do that).
Ok, so what does it mean to turn the other cheek, to give away our tunic? How do we love our enemies, even if we don’t have any mortal enemies?
I’d like to cover two points: first, we must to forgive those we have grudges against. Second, we must to offer up - without retaliating - the many minor injustices and annoyances we suffer.
First, although we might not have mortal enemies, we likely have non-mortal ones. Maybe one barometer is this: Is there anyone whom you really would not like to invite over to your home for Thanksgiving or Christmas? Is there a relative or colleague you’re not on speaking terms with anymore? Perhaps an injustice has led to a falling out, a grudge.
These feelings of ill-will that we cling to – they aren’t good for us. Indeed, Professor Tyler VanderWeele, a parishioner here and one of Harvard’s top Epidemiologists, has published numerous scientific studies – even Randomized Control Trials - showing that forgiveness helps mental health. People who forgive have less depression and anxiety. Google ‘REACH Forgiveness Workbook’ if you want a evidence-based workbook to help you forgive a hurt. Forgiveness doesn’t mean we condone the injustice, but we replace ill will towards the offender with goodwill.
Jesus of course practiced what he preached, and lived perfectly his own challenging teaching on forgiveness – forgiving his executioners from the cross. Countless saints since have followed Jesus’ example. Two from modern times include St John Paul the Second and Josephine Bakhita.
JP2 was shot at nearly point-blank range by a Turkish assassin, and narrowly escaped death. After he was discharged from the hospital, the pope visited his would-be assassin in prison, to forgive him Notice that JP2 did not forgo justice – he did not ask that the criminal be released from prison – but he replaced any ill-will with good-will.
Another example is from the life of St Josephine Bakhita. When she was 9 years old, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Sudan. She endured countless tortures at the hands of various slaveowners over more than 10 years. After she was finally freed and baptized, and she became a nun, she was asked, ‘what would you say now, to those slave traders who kidnapped you?’ She replied (I quote):”
“If I was to meet those slave-traders that abducted me and those who tortured me, I’d kneel down to them to kiss their hands, because, if it had not have been for them, I would not have become a Christian and religious woman”
This is Christlike forgiveness – to kiss the hands of those who tortured her. She exchanged her ill will with good will – precisely because she was able to see these slavetraders as instruments of God’s mercy towards her.
We should all try to see others as God sees them, to try to see the big picture.
All of our readings today point to this spiritual truth.
In the first reading, David is fleeing from King Saul, who unjustly is trying to kill him. It all started when Saul hurled a spear at David when young David was playing the harp. Saul has continued to pursue David, and now David has an opportunity to use that same spear to kill Saul. But he will not, saying, ‘I will not harm the Lord’s anointed’. David has replaced ill will with good will. He accepted the king as God’s anointed. He chose mercy over justice.
In the Psalm, we read that God is “ slow to anger and abounding in kindness. Not according to our sins does he deal with us, nor does he requite us according to our crimes.”
God chooses mercy over justice with each one of us. If He punished us for our many sins as we deserved, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
Because God is kind and merciful to us, we should be the same to others. Jesus says in the Gospel today:
“Love your enemies and do good to them,… 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.”
…Forgive and you will be forgiven.…For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
How we treat others is how God will treat us. We echo this truth every time we pray the Our Father: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
So if we’re holding onto a grudge against someone – if we refuse to forgive … how can we expect God to forgive our many sins, our many offenses to His Sacred Heart?
To recap the first point: we must forgive those we have grudges against.
Secondly, even if we don’t have major grudges, certainly we have people around us to annoy us, who commit minor injustices to us. Turning the other cheek means offering these injustices up.
We know people we dislike. We Christians don’t have to like everyone, but we do have to love everyone. Remember that love is an act of the will: it is willing the good of the other.
And indeed with repeated acts of good will – a kind word, a smile – we will find that even people we dislike will annoy us far less. The emotions follow the intellect and the will. Fake it until you make it.
St Therese found that, as she offered up the other nun’s annoying clicking noise, that eventually she not only tolerated it but actually welcomed this noise as a gift to God. Another example Therese gives is during laundry time, another nun would carelessly wring out the wet handkerchiefs, so that they sprayed dirty water again and again in St Therese’s face. Therese held back any rebuke towards this nun, and tried to see these ‘aspersions’ as a treasure she could offer to Jesus.
St Josemaría Escriva has similar advice. He recommended:
“The cheerful smile for those who bother you; that silence when you're unjustly accused; … this, with perseverance, is indeed solid interior mortification.
Don't say, "that person bothers me." Think: "That person sanctifies me." (The Way, nn. 173-174)
We should welcome minor injustices from others, as a means of growing in holiness.
I will be the first to admit – and I’m sure my wife would be the 2nd to admit – that I’m really bad at this. I get really upset when someone cuts us me off in traffic; or when one of my patients or colleagues is rude to me.
These little injustices are – in fact – opportunities for my sanctification. The spiritual masters tell us that our enemies hold a mirror to ourselves: they show us something negative about ourselves we might have seen. The splinter and the beam are made of the same wood. For example, it really annoys me when I’m driving and the person in front of me just slows and stops at the yellow light. This annoyance tells me that I struggle with the vice of impatience. But it is precisely by practicing patience in these moments, by saying a Hail Mary instead of a curse word, that I can grow in virtue, in patience. Instead of complaining about the colleague or patient that annoys me, I can pray for them or even thank God for them. Gratitude over gossip. Reframing over complaining. Research has shown that this ‘re-framing’ is also good for my mood and mental health.
To repeat St Josemaría: “Don't say, "that person bothers me." Think: "That person sanctifies me." That is Christian re-framing.
Ok, I’d like to summarize three take home points:
First – if you have a real enemy in your life, who you have a grudge against – you must forgive them. Replace ill will with good will. Maybe God is asking you this week to reach out to them – with a letter or a text or a phone call – to take the first step towards reconciliation, which will help your own mental and spiritual health – and theirs.
Second – we all suffer little injustices from people who annoy us. We should see these people as God sees them, to treat them with the same mercy that we hope to receive from God. We should see their injustices as opportunities for sanctification. To love in this way – to will the good of the other – is very difficult; it requires God’s grace. So as a practical suggestion: when you pray the Our Father later this Mass, beg God for this grace, so that God will ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’.
Third – all of the saintly examples that I mentioned in this homily – St Therese, St John Paul II, St Josemaria Escriva, and St Josephine Bakhita – were drawn ‘Saints Alive’, which is a Catholic podcast with narrated lives of the saints. I’ve said it before from this pulpit, and I’ll say it again – I highly recommend this podcast Saints Alive, for both kids and adults.
Let us pray for these saints’ intercession… to follow Christ’s example to turn the other cheek, even if that’s offering up any distractions from people sitting around us here at Mass. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Amen.
[Another great literary 'take' on not allowing people at church to annoy us is found in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters - chapter 2].
