Thursday January 9, 2025

YOUR PATH: Home » Daily Reflections » Thursday January 9, 2025

Good News Reflections:
Making scripture meaningful to your daily life
by Terry Modica

The extent to which we love others is the extent to which we love God.

Good News Reflection for:

Thursday after Epiphany
January 9, 2025

Today’s Prayer:

Beloved Father: I beg You, may Your love produce faithfulness in me, and may my faithfulness to You be poured as true love onto my neighbors. Amen.

IMPROVE YOUR DAY!
Powerful Catholic prayers are available on our YouTube channel.

Today’s Readings:

1 John 4:19–5:4
Ps 72:1-2, 14, 15bc, 17
Luke 4:14-22
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010925.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-january-9-2025

Loving the unlikable

Imagine that you’re dying right now. You approach the gate between earth and heaven, and Jesus comes to greet you, but he looks exactly like the person you most dislike: that ex-spouse or scandalous priest or the employer who fired you or ______. Would you run to him or away from him? Could you embrace him, or would you rather punch him in the nose?

In today’s first reading, we read that anyone who claims to love God while hating another is a liar. If we can’t love someone who is tangibly present to us, how can we love Jesus who is invisible? If we won’t give love to a person we can touch, how can we give love to the Holy Spirit? And if we don’t love every child of the Father who cherishes all of his creations, how can we feel his love for us, especially when we have low self-esteem?

To think we can love God but not that jerk who hurt us so badly is a misconception. The extent to which we love others is the extent to which we love God, because what we do to others we are also doing to our Father who created them and to our Savior who died for them.

Love is like water in a kitchen faucet. When the tap is closed and you place your hand on the faucet, you cannot feel the water inside it, although it is there, waiting to be released. Turn the tap on to make the water pour out, and now your hand on the pipe can feel the vibration of flowing water. God’s love is always within us, but we cannot feel it unless we’re pouring it out onto others.

Loving the unlikable doesn’t mean staying close to those who abuse us, but if we’re close to God, we care about them as he does. Loving the unlikable means caring about their eternal souls. It means forgiving them and moving on instead of remaining stuck in our anger while waiting for them to repent. It means praying for them, not just to ask God to change them so our life can become easier, but so that they will enter more fully into God’s love for their own benefit.

Loving the unlikable requires that we fix our gaze on Jesus, for we trust that God will make good come from everything. It means responding to their evils with God’s goodness while maintaining boundaries of healthy love.

When we love the unlikable, Jesus comforts us with words from today’s Gospel reading: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and I share this with you, my precious friend! The Father has anointed me to bring glad tidings to you, to proclaim liberty to you in your captivity, to give sight to you when troubles blind you, and to set you free from the misery caused by evil.”

When we love the unlikable, our joy doesn’t come from seeing others change. Our joy comes from knowing God’s deep, abiding love as we receive his warm, comforting embrace.

For more on the topic of this subject, use our WordByte, “Washing ugly feet” @ wordbytes.org/passion-spirituality/foot-washing/.

Access more in our new Calendar of Reflections.

To distribute the Good News Reflections in your church bulletin or in RCIA or faith sharing groups, please contact us.

You can also receive this & more faith-builders by text message on your phone.

Keep it going! This reflection reached you thanks to benefactors. Please support this ministry today.

Post your prayer request.

How else can we serve you today? Visit our homepage.

Search more reflections in our continually growing database.

Homebound, Prison & Hospital Ministers are invited to print and distribute them without further permission.

Continue your prayer time with these:
Pray with Saints | Pray the Rosary | Other Prayers | Random Quotes.

Order and share Terry Modica's books

Socialize with us at:

Please share this with others by inviting them to visit this page. You may also print this for your personal use and you may share the print-out with others.