7th Sunday C. 2025 ditto

Militant Love based on Existential Hope.

Because of the hope of the resurrection followers of the son of Maria, live a life of

militant love. David could have killed Saul but he respected that king Saul was anointed by God. David placed his hopes in God’s promise to him and so he  “loved his enemy.”

It is important for us in the U.S. to recognize that this Gospel of Luke is from the perspective of the powerless. It cannot make sense to those who have power. When you have power, you do not have to love your enemy, you are the enemy.

The measure we use to judge, give and forgive, will be used on us.

This militant love based on Existential hope motivates us to give. It is a call well beyond just not doing bad but it is a call to give sacrificially of our time, our talent and our treasure; give of ourselves because we have experienced the generosity of God and live in resurrection Hope.

Black history month gives us more modern examples of how militant Love and existential hope is lived.

Let us look at Venerable Julia Greely and Pierre Toussaint.

A man and women born into the capitalist system of  slavery, they had no power, no agency. Somehow in the person of Jesus they experienced existential hope, and that hope led them to live militant love towards a nation and people, a church and neighbors  who hated them, persecuted them, excluded them, and dehumanized them.

Julia Greely with her little red wagon and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus gave of her time, her treasure and her body in acts of charity to her neighbors, church and nation. About not eating breakfast, she famously said, “My communion is my breakfast.”

I encourage you to meditate on her life, be inspired by her acts and converted to her militant love.

Pierre Toussaint, a Haitian trafficked from Haiti to enslavement in New York City. Once he gained his freedom, he bought the freedom of his sister and future wife with the profits of his talents as a hairdresser. With that same talent, Venerable Pierre Toussaint  took financial care of the widow of his enslaver, and the poor of New York City.

Entombed at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NY City, he famously said about retiring,  “I have enough for myself, but if I stop working, I have not enough for others.”

In the current darkness overcoming the light of the Statue of Liberty, followers of Jesus will let their light shine as we engage in militant love based on existential hope. What does this love look like?

In the Saintly Six we have men and women, religious and lay people of color – some immigrants some trafficked to the U.S., Cuban, Latino, Haitian, French- who despite the conditions of oppression, epidemics, beatings, rape and hangings, lived militant love in the hope that one day on America.

God [would] shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

Hope That

God [would] mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And every gain divine!