What Are We Trying To Be?

You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-48 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

Prayer Reflection

Dear Father you ask us to love our neighbor, not only that, but to love our enemies. We who are imperfect have a difficult time with this particular task. Yet, when we really think about it we see that we tend to gravitate toward those who we love more and shy away from those we tend to dislike. It happens everywhere we go. But since we are not perfect it's understandable that we do this. We're not supposed to be perfect, or they say it's not normal. But Jesus tells us to be perfect because you are perfect. Now for the sake of argument without arguing, supposing we have striven to do this our whole life, to do everything as perfect as possible in order to be as perfect as you are. To be told by others, we are not God and we are not to be perfect. When confronted with this in the workforce, in our daily lives, and so forth. We lose the very concept of what is written by your Son. Now for the other point, when we live attempting to be as perfect as you are, loving our enemies becomes quite possible. Since we have the tendency to gravitate to those we love more, then it is up to us to make ourselves gravitate towards those whom we dislike and as we do this we find a gift in the process of love, the very act of loving our enemies as we love our neighbor. More or less we are trying to be perfect as you are. So dear Father may I imitate your love each day that I live and strive to be an instrument of love. Amen