Luke's gospel selection today very much allies itself with the man the Church has honored for centuries as a saint as well as a doctor of the Church. John Chrysostom was boon around the year 349. After becoming a monk, then a priest, he became known as the Golden Mouth (Chrysostom) because of his extraordinary skill in preaching.
Eventually he was made the bishop of Constantinople who recognized the weaknesses in both the clergy and laity alike. It was the message of the gospel that enabled him to give himself to sinners because he saw in them the very presence of God.
St. Augustine, so I have read, has written that it is by our love rather than by our feet that we come to love God. For him as well as St. John and other scripture writers, the virtue of love is significant on our faith journey.
We daily express our love for God by seeing him in others. It is in seeing God in them that brings us not only to love them but to forgive them when they injure us.
If we boast of our love for God, then we must live our lives just as Jesus spoke his final few words: "Forgive them for they do not know what they do." Do you believe that those who condemned and executed Jesus truly knew that he was God-incarnate? If they did, how could they ever have brought death to the man.
When we cannot forgive one who has offended us, we are failing to love the God that is within them.
