The first reading for mass today is about opposites. It shows the different opposing forces that Christians encounter and how to handle them. To counter the negative things in life with the positive is an excellent way to help bring about the kingdom of God into our world. The first reading from the second book of Corinthians says that “now is a very acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation”. Saint Paul said in everything we should commend ourselves to God, through afflictions, hardships and constraints among many other negative situations. But, then he goes on to show how to counter the negative things that occur in life, with the positive. Purity, patience and kindness are a few of the ways the Holy spirit empowers us to withstand assaults of negativity in our lives.
It is so easy to respond to evil with evil. That is our natural instinct to do so. But, a harder yet more excellent way, is to let the negativity that we encounter die within us. Through the Holy Spirit, we can gain the strength to not perpetuate the evil that we encounter in our lives. It can stop with us. As Christians we are called to go against our natural inclinations and deflect the negative situations we find ourselves in. We can convert the evil and negativity we encounter in life within our hearts into something good. We cooperate with God’s grace when we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us to bring God’s love into the world.
God took the greatest evil the world has ever known, when mankind crucified his son, and converted it into the greatest act of love the world has ever known. But Christ cooperated with His Father’s will. His struggle in the garden of Gethsemane was when sin and death was actually defeated. It was within Christ’s heart that he made the decision to accept suffering and death for the forgiveness of mankind’s sins. The battle was fought in his heart long before it was followed through with the actual sacrifice of his life. We too, in imitation of Christ can choose to endure suffering so that love can be brought into the world as well.
In the Gospel today, Jesus goes into more depth about stopping the effects of sin by not responding to it. Men used to get in fist fights, and in our day and age too, but Jesus taught the men of his time how to walk a way from a fight. Don’t respond to it. The evil will die down when you don’t respond to it with more evil. This is the way to put out the fire and make sure a bad situation does not escalate into a worse one.
The verses Jesus said in today’s gospel “but I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well” has been misinterpreted by women living with domestic violence as to the morally right thing to do. However, the Lord Jesus always took up for people who were being mistreated, especially women. No one, a man, woman or child should ever tolerate physical abuse. It is an assault against the human dignity that God Himself gave to them.
However, for most of us, we can avoid problems from escalating by countering the negative with good. It’s like throwing water on a fire before it gets out of hand. And sometimes if we “go the extra mile” to be kind to a person who doesn’t like us, it can cause their conversion. An old saying is “to kill them with kindness” because kindness does kill negativity and that was what the Gospel was all about today. Let us make an extra effort to get along with others in all of the circumstances we find ourselves in. We can stop our first impulsive thought and make the decision to be kind to people, especially those who are are not in a very good mood today. May God’s grace and the peace of Jesus Christ be with us, as we go about our day.
