Martin Madalai Muthu csc –
Readings: 2 Cor 6: 1-10; Mt 5:38-42
As Christian life demands, walking as a child of light is a real day-to-day battle. The devil does not like anything good and would work as hard as he can to misguide the children of light. But if we rely on his grace we can keep working towards that ideal of overcoming evil with good. This was a conviction in St. Paul’s life.
As we see in today’s first reading relying on the grace of God he conquered all trials, defeated all temptations, and remained trustworthy and blameless before God. He guarded his behaviour and maintained consistency in doing good. At the face of conflicts and struggles sometimes we nurture ill feelings instead of tackling them with the assistance of divine grace.
Jesus through today’s Gospel passage warns us not to engage in physical battles with a desire to react or to take revenge. Jesus wants us to be the models and examples of selfless giving just like him. Jesus is not asking us simply to allow people to overrule us, Jesus wants us to fight against the injustice in the right place and with the real enemy.
The real enemy is not the one who struck us on one cheek, it is the one who comes to steal, to kill and destroy (John 10:10). We need to fight against this enemy by going into our prayer room again, wiping off the dust from our prayer books, opening that clean sparkling bible, spending more time in God’s presence, and dropping whatever vices, bad habits, or sinful deeds which are found in our life. We need to have genuine talk with God to have him on our side to fight for us. Let us stop wasting time fighting with people. God wants us to radiate the light of Christ when we are wounded and overlooked by the people whom we serve.