Abraham Lincoln, who was the sixteenth President of US and who led the country through its civil war and the most severe internal national crisis, once said: ‘The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.’ In Lincoln’s words we can hear an echo of today’s preaching of Our Blessed Lord. We continue receiving what is known in the Gospel of Luke as the Sermon on the Plain. Last Sunday Jesus presented to us two ways of living: the way of life and the way of death. Today we hear what the way of life looks like. Let’s listen to Jesus’ life giving words again: ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly.’
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! We may think now that what Jesus invites us to do is opposite to common sense. How can we open wide our heart to someone who not only doesn’t appreciate it but who hurts us as well? To answer this question let me fast forward to the day when we find Jesus on the cross. Not many people were left there but St Luke gives us some final words of the dying Saviour of the World. What did Jesus say on the cross that St Luke wants us to treasure and to ponder? In his terrible agony Jesus loved his enemies, those who condemned him to death and those who crucified him. How do we know that? Despite his pain, when every cell of his body screamed with pain, Jesus made an effort to say loudly some prayer. It was not a prayer for pain relief but for his enemies: ‘Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.’ He even managed to find an excuse for what they did to him!
            Our common sense resists such thing. However both Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Plain about loving enemies and his own example of doing it are the grace to transform our rebellious mentality from within of our anger and hatred.
As Jesus went into the ‘belly of the beast,’ which was exemplified by those who hated him and wanted to do away with him, as he goes into the darkness of our heart and mind where we harbor resentment and a sense of vengeance. Why does he go there? To be crucified again? He will be crucified again by us if we cling to our conviction that it is our fundamental right to be angry at some people and refuse them our forgiveness. St Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians put it this way: ‘Even if you are angry you must not sin.’ How can we avoid sinning when we get angry with someone? In the same letter St Paul gives us some good and divine advice: ‘never let the sun set on your anger.’ It means: you may find yourself angry, mad etc. but make it your way of dealing with it that before the sunset you will weed out your anger. Let Jesus, the Rising Sun; dispel the darkness of your hatred and anger.
Jesus doesn’t promise that your love for enemies will be reciprocated. What Jesus promises is that you will be a true missionary going on a mission to your own heart in order to ‘model it on the heavenly man’ - Christ himself. What a mission it is! What a fruit it can bear!
St Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians wrote: ‘The first man Adam, as scripture says, became living soul; but the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit.’ By the last Adam St Paul meant Jesus Christ.
My Dear fellow strugglers in faith! When the Sacred Heart of Jesus was wide open on the cross, when blood and water poured out, there was the spirit of forgiveness released for us so that we can ‘be compassionate as our Father is compassionate.’ This is the Gospel. This is the Good News for us. Take this Gospel, this Good News, into the darkness of your own heart and mind. Let it work from within. There are still a few hours before the sunset. Use them well to get rid of your anger. For Jesus’s sake do it. 

​At the end of the forty-year-journey through the desert the aged Moses spoke to the people who were about to enter the Promised Land: ‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing or curse, therefore choose life.’ At the crucial moment of their history, Moses calls his people to choose, to make a decision. It is not about choosing between going to the Promised Land and returning to Egypt. It is about the choice to live a godly life in the Promised Land. Could it be said that the Land was to bring death and curse upon the people settling into it? Of course not, however people could live in the Holy Land as pagans and that’s death and curse. The Land itself wouldn’t make anyone automatically true worshipers.
As they were sighting the destination of their long desert wandering Moses, as God’s prophet, reminded the people that it was not the end of their journey with God and to God. They would need to live not only off the Land God was giving them but also off the Holy Word which would be coming to them. The very first verses of the beautiful Book of Psalms capture that: ‘Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked; nor lingers in the way of sinners nor sits in the company of scorners but whose delight is the law of the Lord and who ponders his Law day and night.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! This passage of Scriptures applies to us too. Our Promised Land is called the Church. As we read the chapter six of St Luke’s Gospel we find Jesus ‘at a piece of level ground.’ That’s why what he said there is called the Sermon on the Plain. St Luke symbolically says that this is the fulfillment of what John the Baptist preached: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth.’ St Luke, as he contemplates Jesus preaching on the plain, marvels at how the prophesy of the Baptist is unfolding. However it is not simply the geography that inspires the Author of the Gospel. From the landscape he moves his focus to ‘a large gathering of Jesus’ disciples with a great crowd of people’ and at the center of that gathering there is Jesus and the Twelve Apostles chosen just hours before.
The Plain where Jesus preached his sermon became the new Promised Land because there was Jesus, the Twelve, the disciples and a crowd of people. This new Promised Land is defined not by seas, deserts, rivers or mountains; it is defined by the people who are Jesus’ disciples.
This Promised Land, the Church, the gathering of Jesus’ Apostles and disciples, is where we are. We’ve got our Baptismal certificates, Confirmation certificates, Marriage certificates etc. We are in the Promised Land but it is not the end of our journey with God and to God. Jesus, like Moses, said to his listeners gathered on the plain about making a choice between the way of blessing and life and the way of cursing and death.
In order to appreciate Jesus’ sermon on the Plain let me tell you a story. It is about a woman and a man falling in love with each other. They were still young and studying. They didn’t have much money. But they loved each other. When they got married they experienced poverty, even they were hungry sometimes. There were also tears when they felt abandoned by their friends and relations. But at the deep level they were happy. They didn’t regret the hardships because they had each other, because they shared life.
When Jesus ‘fixed his eyes on his disciples’ he put together words the most people would never do: poor and happy, hungry and happy, weeping and happy, castigated and happy. But if we live in the Church as disciples for whom their relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in life we are like that young couple I mentioned before. We may suffer a lot but we have our Lord in our life and what a life it is.
St Catherine of Siena once said: ‘It is heaven all the way to heaven.’ Could we be surprised at that if Jesus is the way, the truth and the life?
My Dear fellow believers! Choose the Way. Choose the Truth. Choose the Life. Then it will be for you heaven all the way to heaven.

​There was a girl whose name was Chiara. She was bright, cheerful and popular. She enjoyed swimming, skiing and being with her friends. When she went to high school there was a misunderstanding with a teacher. Chiara had to repeat the first year at high school. She was disappointed. This is what she revealed to her friend about that disappointment: ‘I wasn’t able to give this suffering to Jesus right away. It took a little time to recover.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! In the Gospel for this Sunday we meet a disappointed man – Peter. Let us listen again to how he revealed his disappointment: ‘We have worked hard all night long and caught nothing.’ Peter wasn’t able to give his suffering, his disappointment to Jesus right away either. As a mature man, who was supposed to support his family, he must have felt bad, kind of a failure.
The prophet Isaiah had this awesome vision when he ‘saw the Lord of Hosts seated on high throne and above whom stood seraphs crying ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. His glory fills the whole earth.’’ At the same time he looked into his own conscience and what he saw was all but holy, in fact he declared with disappointment: ‘What a wretched state I am in. I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips.’ He was disappointed with himself of not being worthy to be in the presence of All Holy God. He was disappointed that he didn’t live up to the standards to which God was calling his people.
Different kinds of disappointments we have seen in these three people. Could you add your own disappointment to the story?  Do think about that. Identify and name your disappointment. Why? Because your disappointment can become your appointment with God. Chiara met Jesus in her study disappointment. Peter met Jesus in his work disappointment. Isaiah met All Holy God in his personality disappointment. If you, my fellow believers, are disappointed with something in your life open wide your eyes and look around. The Lord Jesus is there. He is not going to join you at feeling sorry for yourself though. Instead at this unique appointment in your disappointment he says to you: ‘You did not choose me, no, I chose you and I commissioned you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last.’
This is our discovery that God is at work, that God transforms the world through our need for him. He is not waiting for us showing off to him our awards and achievements but he wants to award us with his compassion. He wants us to display before people that we live and move in him. He wants us to fascinate others with our content with living the life as his followers and even more… as his children.
I am fascinated with the life of Isaiah and Peter. I am also fascinated with the life of that girl I mentioned at the beginning, Chiara Badano. Looking at them you can see the radiance of God shining in our world which seems to be a dark place so often. Chiara was born in 1971. She is our contemporary. She died at the age of 19 of a rare bone cancer in 1990. When two years earlier she was told the grim prognosis she was disappointed and she struggled to accept it. She asked her mother: ‘Mum, is it fair to die at 17 years of age?’ However eventually she said: ‘If this is what you want, Jesus, so do I.’ When exhausted with illness she revealed: ‘I have nothing left, but still have my heart, and with that I can always love.’ Our Catholic Church has recognized how precious disappointment it was as it was indeed an appointment with God. Chiara was beatified, she was declared Blessed in 2010, only 20 years after her premature death. Was it a premature death? By 19 she reached the maturity of Jesus’ follower, of a child of God who lived with content her dependence on God, her need for God.
Blessed Chiara, pray for us.

​A woman was attending a silent retreat. After a few days, during a brief sharing session, which was the only time when the attendees were allowed to speak, she said: ‘I cannot wait to go home.’ Some people thought that she was getting sick and tired of silence but she went on to say: ‘I cannot wait to go home and to tell my family and friends about the peace, solace and joy I have been living during this retreat.’
My dear Sisters and Brothers! What that woman experienced was profoundly Christian. I mean not only the peace, solace and joy she found but predominantly the desire to share it with others. Her religious experience reflects that of prophet Jeremiah who heard from God: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you.’ How many of us long to hear it from God, to have deep down in our soul the conviction that God speaks these words to us as well. God does speak these words to us but to hear them we need to be open to hear them in their entirety: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you. I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’
Jewish people had imbedded in their religiosity that God wouldn’t cease to send them prophets. When Jesus came he inaugurated a new era of prophets. The anointing to be prophets we, Christians, receive at our Baptism. After the water of Baptism was poured upon you the priest took the oil of Sacred Chrism and while anointing your head he said: ‘God now anoints you with the Chrism of Salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so you may always live as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.’ It doesn’t mean that we can predict future. It is not the role of a prophet. A prophet is the one who lives closely to God, reflects on God’s holy words, observes attentively what is happening in the community in which she or he lives and offers it a prophetic insight. This is how Jesus preached in the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. The Gospel for this Sunday reveals to us that people ‘were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips.’ It wasn’t sweet talking but prophetic talking, the talking which explains the reality in light of God’s word.
Our society doesn’t appear resembling that of the Jewish community at the time of Jesus which longed for prophets. Our society doesn’t seem to be longing for prophets, at least prophets of God. The situation which happened prior to the Second Persian Gulf War captures something of our society. Saint Pope John Paul II already during the First Persian Gulf War in 1991 cried out: ‘War never again! No, never again war, because it destroys the lives of innocent people, throws into upheaval the lives of those who do the killing, and always leaves behind a trail of hatred and resentment that make it all the more difficult to resolve the very problems that provoke the conflict, the war.’ In 2003 when President Bush was preparing to launch the Second Persian Gulf War the Pope said: ‘This is not an accord with God’s ways.’ He sent a cardinal with his personal letter to the President. The President received the cardinal but never opened the letter. In what looked like his failure St John Paul II resembled our Blessed Lord who faced rejection in his home town even if at the beginning people found his words gracious.
When we take our religious experience out of our comfortable private room we may meet ridicule or rejection. It may hurt us deeply as faith in God is very personal, as it makes us who we are. This is the cross we are called to take up as we follow the Lord Jesus. We are called to be prophets of the Twenty-first century, the new prophets who believe not only for our own good but for the good of others and thus for God’s glory.