Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Matthew 5:43-48
March 12, 2022 | Saturday

Today’s Gospel

You have heard that it was said: Love your neighbor and do not do good to your enemy. But this I tell 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 both the wicked and the good, and he gives rain to both the just and the unjust.

If you love those who love you, what is special about that? Do not even tax collectors do as much? And if you are friendly only to your friends, what is so exceptional about that? Do not even the pagans do as much? As for you, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Today’s Reflection:

The Lord’s laws are not mere imperatives that need to be complied with. If that was His motive, God should have chosen to create robots and puppets instead of human beings. The reason why He troubled himself with creating humans who are free to either obey him or not is to create children who can freely decide to be His own or not. Divine laws give us a glimpse of God’s logic of the heart, namely, how He loves, put value and places priorities on things. As such, His laws, when meditated intimately, can serve as a person’s manual and guide on discerning how God may love and enact through us, as His extensions and children in this world. Today’s gospel also reminds us that part of learning how to love as God loves is loving one’s enemies. /Vulnerasti, 2022