16 June 2025 – Monday of the 11th week
2 Cor 6:1-10; Mt 5:38-42
Turn the other cheek
This passage from the Gospel reminds me of a scene from the life of Mahatma Gandhi. It is an event that took place towards the end of Gandhi's life. India had just gained independence, but it had already split into two countries: India itself, a Hindu country, and Pakistan, a Muslim country; and a civil war was raging in the major cities between Muslims and Hindus. Gandhi then began a fast, determined not to eat anything until peace was restored between the two factions. It was then that a Hindu man came to find Gandhi. He was desperate, convinced that he was damned forever because he had killed a Muslim child. He had killed him in revenge because Muslims had killed his own child. Gandhi then told him what he must do to avoid damnation. ‘Go,’ he said, ‘find a child the same age as the one you lost, adopt him and raise him as your own child. But above all, take care to choose a Muslim child and raise him as a good Muslim.’
Even if Gandhi was not a Christian, it would be difficult to find a more authentic application of Jesus' message in today's Gospel.
After more than two thousand years of Christianity, there is still war in every corner of the planet, and it is often waged by Christian countries, or at least millions of Christians are involved in it. But above all, we have our own private wars. They may be a few minutes' skirmish or a conflict that lasts a few days. They may also be tensions that last for years. The commandment to turn the other cheek is no more reasonable today than it was in Jesus' time, or than it has been for the past two millennia. But it remains the only way to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, and therefore the only way to enter into eternal life.
The source of interpersonal tensions, like that of all wars, is that we forget that we are possessed by the Truth and pretend to possess it. We think we are the sole owners of truth, of God, of justice. We are always tempted to return to the morality of the Old Testament, which embodied a territorial religion. God was conceived as the god of a people, of a land. Of course, there were other countries and other peoples who had their own gods; they were tolerated at best if there was no open conflict with them.
The great world wars of our time and many other conflicts have shown us the destructive force of all forms of racism and nationalism. Any limitation of love to spatial boundaries, through walls, whether material or otherwise, is a resurgence of the polytheism of Old Testament times, which limited gods to specific territories. The political world of recent years has revived this ancient polytheism, and as Christians we have a duty not to allow ourselves to be drawn into this mentality.
The worst form of idolatry, however, is probably that which consists in turning one's own desires and the pursuit of personal satisfaction into idols. Let us ask the Lord for the purity of heart that will enable us to see God in every person and preserve us from any failure to love our neighbour.
Armand Veilleux