Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Naboth has vineyard next to Ahab's palace; Ahab wants it for vegetable garden; Naboth: Lord forbid I give you my ancestral heritage; Ahab sulks refuses food; Jezebel: I will obtain it; writes letters in Ahab's name; seat Naboth at head have two scoundrels testify he blasphemed God and king; stone him; elders and nobles did so; Jezebel told Ahab; Ahab went down to take possession. At dawn I direct prayer; you do not delight in wickedness; evil cannot dwell with you; arrogant cannot stand; you hate all evildoers; through your abundant mercy I will enter your house. You have heard eye for eye tooth for tooth; but I say do not resist evil; if struck on right cheek turn other; if wants tunic give cloak too; whoever forces one mile go two; give to one who asks; do not turn away who wants to borrow.

Ahab asks to buy Naboth's vineyard; Naboth refuses - the Lord forbid he give away his ancestral heritage; Ahab sulks and won't eat; Jezebel writes letters in Ahab's name having scoundrels falsely accuse Naboth of blasphemy; the community stones Naboth; Ahab takes possession. The psalm: at dawn I direct prayer to you and watch; you do not delight in wickedness; the arrogant cannot stand before you; through your mercy I will enter your house. In the Gospel, Jesus gives the fifth antithesis: not eye for eye but do not resist the evil one; turn the other cheek; give cloak with tunic; go two miles when one is demanded; give to one who asks.

DEACON/PRIEST: Lord Jesus, through Naboth you show us what it looks like to hold the ancestral heritage against all offers and pressures - the Lord forbid that I give you what was given me in trust. PEOPLE: Lord, have mercy.

DEACON/PRIEST: Christ Jesus, you call us not to violent retaliation but to the free response - the turned cheek, the second mile, the given cloak - that demonstrates our freedom from determination by aggression. PEOPLE: Christ, have mercy.

DEACON/PRIEST: Lord Jesus, through your abundant mercy we enter your house - not through our own righteousness but through the mercy that is larger than the wickedness we have witnessed and suffered. PEOPLE: Lord, have mercy.

PRIEST: Through your abundant mercy I will enter your house. Let us bring our prayers before the God who does not delight in wickedness.

DEACON/LECTOR:

1. That the Church's shepherds - our Holy Father, our bishop, and all who bear the weight of the inheritance - would hold it with Naboth's clarity and not yield it at any price, we pray to the Lord.
2. For those who have been falsely accused and had their inheritance taken through manufactured testimony, that the God who does not delight in wickedness would vindicate them, we pray to the Lord.
3. For those learning the second-mile freedom - the giving that is chosen rather than extracted - that the practice would form the character Jesus describes, we pray to the Lord.
4. Where generosity has gone unreciprocated and the giving feels wasted, that the Lord who sees every act of giving would honor it in ways unseen, we pray to the Lord.
5. In this Sacred Heart month, for the heart that chose the cross rather than the legions of angels - the ultimate second mile, we pray to the Lord.
6. We remember those who have died holding what could not be sold - that the heritage they kept in trust is now fully theirs in God, we pray to the Lord.

PRIEST: Lord, let this parish hold what was given us in trust. And let the giving we do be free - the second mile, the offered cloak, the gift that demonstrates whose we are. Sacred Heart of Jesus, we trust in you. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.