Luke 6:27-36

Summary: The sixth commandment certainly means that the church needs to think deeply about the ethics of life and death—whether that’s abortion, medically assisted dying, capital punishment, or warfare.  But as Jesus and the catechism state so clearly, the sixth commandment aims even deeper into the heart, forbidding even envy, anger and animosity, and requiring that we seek the good even of those who do us wrong.  The sixth commandment is a clear call to imitate our saviour who absorbed all kinds of hatred and injustice, and rather than passing that back in the form of vengeance, he responded in life-giving grace.  So too are we called to be the ones in whom cycles of hostility are put to an end, and new possibilities of love and reconciliation are opened.