The gospel for Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Matthew, 5th chapter 43, 48th verse. Jesus said to his disciples, you’ve heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father. For he makes the sun rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not tax collectors do the same. And if you greet your brother only what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same. So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. God the Father is perfect.

Always loving, always caring, always forgiving. And we’re to be perfect, not perfect like God is perfect, but perfectly human. And the most natural reaction to someone who does something against us, to persecute us is either to question whether they’re right and we’re wrong or whether to to take it as a personal affront and we become angry. He’s saying, look, expect evil to be there. Expect persecution. It’s the plan, it’s the way it works.

The world is perfectly designed with good and evil and get used to it and be ready for it. And know I’ll help you through it. Satan. Satan. Satan. Satisfaction, Father.

Our own dignity, our own value is something. You continually tell us that we have this gift and yet we let it be attacked by so many things outside of ourselves. Give us a kind of protection against that kind of force that creates doubt and fear in us and a lack of value. Give us your courage. Make us more like you. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.