In order to become saints we have to forgive our enemies, pray for our enemies, love our enemies. Deacon Greg has a homily up for this weekend.

Excerpt.

How do we begin?

Writer Emmett Fox, in his book “Sermon on the Mount,” explains it in a way I think we all can understand.  And it starts with something so simple, but so hard: forgiveness.  It is a necessary first step.

He says: by not forgiving we “are tied to the thing [we] hate. The person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one to whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel. Is this what you wish?”

I think we all know the answer.  We need to detach ourselves from that hook.  Then, and only then, we can we begin to heal, and to love, and to pray for those who have hurt us so deeply.

So today, as you approach the altar to receive the body of Christ, pray to detach that hook.  Pray for the grace to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable, and to remember in prayer those you’d rather forget.

I have a long way to go to achieve that.  I think most of us do.

But only in beginning that journey toward love, only then can we dare to approach the perfection Christ spoke of – a perfection we can never fully attain, but to which we all have to strive, day by day, prayer by prayer.

Work to be more than what you are, Christ said.

Strive to be perfect, like the Father.

Jesus showed us the way.

How could any of us not try to follow?

Get thou to the Deacons bench and read the whole homily.