TREAT EVERYONE FAIRLY AND WITH SENSITIVITY
Tuesday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
“If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?” Jesus is telling us to love everyone, even those who don’t love us, those who persecute us, who drive us crazy. I think we do try to do that. In fact, I have observed that some people go out of their way for those they really can’t stand. They even might go overboard for people they’d rather go evaporate. Is it that we are trying to carry out Christ’s command to love our enemies, or to cover up the fact that we don’t like someone? Whatever it is, we are to do our best to genuinely treat everyone fairly and with sensitivity. Not an easy thing to do. Not easy at all.
How much, though, do we really love those who love us? How well are we treating those who treat us well?
I have also often observed that those, who by their actions deserve our love in return, are often among the last to get any concern from us. Maybe they don’t get any at all. We’re too busy trying to be good to the bad guys in the black hats who don’t care for us, and whom we aren’t too fond of. And we take our real friends for granted.
Those we live with, those who write and call, those who so often seem to be there when we need some advice or a listening ear, they are the ones who often are left for last on our list of people we do things for.
Yes, there is much merit in loving all people as God does, especially the seemingly unlovable. But let us not forget those who love us, those good people in the white hats. It is from them that we learn how to love those others.
