Carl Bloch, 1890
“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.[5] 39 But I tell you that you should not offer resistance to injury; if a man strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn the other cheek also towards him …” (Matthew 5:38-39)
Wow. Most would say this is a hard teaching, some would say the hardest of all His teachings.
Here is Fulton Sheen’s reflection on the subject, from his masterpiece Life of Christ. It is lengthy but highly profitable reading.
“Why turn the other cheek? Because hate multiplies like a seed. If one preaches hate and violence to ten men in a row, and tells the first man to strike the second, and the second to strike the third, the hatred will envelop all ten. The only way to stop this hate is for one man (say the fifth in line), to turn his other cheek. Then the hatred ends. It is never passed on. Absorb violence for the sake of the Savior, Who will absorb sin and die for it. The Christian law is that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty.
“Thus He would have us do away with adversaries, because when no resistance is offered, the adversary is conquered by a superior moral power; such love prevents the infection of the wound of hate. To endure for a year the bore who afflicts you for a week; to write a letter of kindness to the man who calls you dirty names; to offer gifts to the man who would steal from you; never to answer back with hatred the man who lies and says you are disloyal to your country or tells the worse lie, that you are against freedom — these are the hard things which Christ came to teach, and they no more suited His time than they do ours. They suit only the heroes, the great men, the saints, the holy men and women who will be the salt of the earth, the leaven in the mass, the elite among the mov, the kind who will transform the world. If certain people are not lovable, one puts love into them and they will become lovable. Why is anyone lovable — if it be not that God put His love into each of us?
“The Sermon on the Mount is so much at variance with all that our world holds dear that the world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values. Because Christ preached them, He had to die. Calvary was the price He paid for the Sermon on the Mount. Only mediocrity survives. Those who call black black, and white white, are sentenced for intolerance. Only the grays live.” (Emphasis added.)
“The world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values.” This is the fine print nobody showed us when we were going through RCIA!
It is tough pill to swallow to know the innocent shall suffer for the guilty. It’s easy enough to thank Jesus for His sacrifice (although many do not), but not at all easy to be thankful that we are commanded to make the same kind of sacrifice.
If you believe you have an eternal soul, earthly suffering is bearable, even desirable. If we unite our suffering with Christ’s, our suffering is most pleasing to God and opens for us the door of Heaven. But even so, it takes an enormous faith to turn the other cheek, to overcome the pride and love of pleasure and thirst for revenge that are always trying to assert themselves and erase what God has written on our hearts.
Reflection
Lord, give me the fortitude to suffer for the guilty. Give me the faith to follow You to places I would rather not go. Give me the grace to make Your will mine.
