Commentary on the Gospel of
There was once a working mother who was called in the principal’s office. She has had to take an emergency leave from work to attend to the needs of her son, unknown to her the reason why she was called. Much to her fear, her high school son was caught cheating during the test. When the principal told her of the wrongdoing of her son and the possible consequences of his act, she became furious. She stood up and started scolding her son in front of the principal. Her son was so quiet, when suddenly he knelt down hugged her and said “I am sorry mom.” She stopped shouting, bent down, and hugged her son back. She was like a burning coal thrown into the water.
Our gospel today invites us not to fight back, “when someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” This is a very difficult invitation. It calls us to be humble and forgiving. Does this mean that we have to give in to evil doers? “I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.” I do not believe Jesus is saying that we simply surrender to the evil one, but that we are not to fight evil by evil means. Instead, we need to resist evil with the righteousness of God through humility and forgiveness. This is the ultimate way for us to end the cycle of violence… hurting, killing, bashing, fighting, and all the other forms of evil amongst us. The only way we can counter the wickedness in the world is through the compassion of Jesus Christ!
We always fall short and sin against God. We make our promises to Him but we tend to break them. We forget Him in our lives especially when our lives reflect calm and easy-going. We are selfish at times but God has never struck back or got even at us. But instead, God continuously invites us back to him, forgives, and loves us even more.
