The New Law which Jesus gives in the Sermon of the Mount should challenge us regularly. In today’s Gospel reading from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:38-42), Jesus tells us as his disciples to go beyond what reason alone would demand in their acts of love for others. It is perfectly reasonable, on one level, to fight against those who harm us and to protect ourselves from unreasonable demands. But this is not what Jesus asks. Rather than “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” we are to “offer no resistance to one who is evil,” and when people make demands of us, we are to give them even more than what they ask.
The kind of love that Jesus asks us to practice can begin with our families, friends, and daily acquaintances. Today, let us look for opportunities to practice this kind of costly and self-sacrificing love, asking the Holy Spirit for the gift of charity.