A Note From Father Eickhoff

February 23, 2025

The First Reading today is taken from the First Book of Samuel. The passage describes how David, when he was a fugitive hiding in the desert, refused to make use of an opportunity to kill King Saul who was pursing him and his men. On the surface it may appear to be no more than an amusing tale of adventure and daring. However, upon closer inspection there is much more going on. Furthermore, this passage is a great illustration of the words of Jesus Christ in today’s Gospel put into action.

First, we should keep in mind why David was hiding out in the desert. After David’s slaying of Goliath, the people of the Kingdom of Isreal proclaimed David as a great hero and began to esteem him over King Saul. Saul became insanely jealous of the people’s praise of David and began to see in David a rival for the kingship. To no avail David protested that he was not seeking to overthrow King Saul and he was eventually forced to flee into the desert with some of his men to escape Saul’s wrath. Thus, in today’s First Reading David is provided with what appears to be a golden opportunity to kill Saul, return to his home, and seize the kingship of Isreal for himself when he is able to sneak through King Saul’s guards and stand over the sleeping Saul. Yet, David refuses to slay King Saul. Instead, David takes Saul’s water jug and spear and carries them away to demonstrate to everyone that he could have slain Saul but did not.

King Saul was acting as an enemy to David and was seeking to kill David. In the way of typical human relations, we would consider that ample justification for harming our enemies in return. However, Jesus Christ tells us in the Gospel today that this is not the way that God acts towards us and if we want to be true children of God we must strive to act as God acts. That is, we must act with mercy and compassion towards those who are enemies. This makes a good bit of sense. Imagine if you will what our lives would be like if God took vengeance for every evil, sinful act that we have or will ever commit. A moment of consideration of this concept will likely make you tremble with fear. For every one of us has done wrong and every one of us would be subject to God’s just vengeance if that vengeance was not tempered by God’s mercy. Christ reminds us that as we have been the beneficiaries of God’s mercy so we in turn should be merciful to others.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Stephen Eickhoff
Pastor