Sticking With Love

[Note: Today’s guest blogger is Rev. Patti LaRosa. Rev. Patti was ordained a Roman Catholic Womanpriest in 2011. She was a chaplain and presider for ten years at Dignity-Integrity Rochester, an LGBTQIA advocacy congregation located in the Episcopal Church of St. Luke and St. Simon Cyrene, often referred to as Two Saints. Rev. Patti has been a Spiritus parishioner for many years and began helping out with liturgies in September 2025. Thank you, Rev. Patti!]

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, I had total right shoulder replacement surgery. You might have seen me with a sling at the 9:30 mass, or when I presided at daily masses on Tuesdays at Immanuel Baptist and on Thursday evenings at Spiritus. I’m thirteen weeks out from surgery now, and I don’t wear a sling anymore, have very little pain and greatly improved range of motion. But it took a lot of physical therapy and a lot of pain to get here, and I continue to push through exercises daily.

The slogan, “no pain, no gain” now makes sense to me. Keep doing those exercises, keep gaining small increases in movement, keep going, keep going.

When I read Saturday’s gospel reading from Matthew 5 and saw that Jesus is asking us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” and “Be perfect, just as your loving God perfect,” I knew that a lot of work and pain was ahead.

The first thing that hit me was the “Be perfect” statement that Jesus made. How is it even possible for us to strive to attain this highest level of perfection?

The Winter Olympics ended last Sunday, and in those two weeks we saw athletes who spent years training to reach perfection in their chosen sport. We regularly saw, as the classic Olympic narration used to say, “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” but no athlete announced they had attained their vision of Perfection. They did their absolute best of what they could do at whatever moment was given them.

“Be perfect just as your Loving God is perfect.” As soon as read this, I said to myself, “It’s just not possible.”

Then I remembered the parable about the camel going through the eye of a needle and Jesus saying, “With God all things are possible.” So, the work begins, in the same way as the work began to regain motion in my shoulder. Small steps, every day, and the pain goes along with the commitment.

This is the conclusion of Matthew 5:43-48: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.” Here are two quotes this teaching from the Sermon on the Mount is echoed in other statements Jesus made, with a third quote from Paul’s letter to the Romans (which references Proverbs 25:22) “Forgive us our trespasses we forgive those who trespass against us,” (Mt 6:12) “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” (Mt 7:1-2) “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil by good.” (Romans 12:20)

But the persistent question remains, “How do I do this?” I can’t simply say, “okay, I love my enemies,” because that lacks depth and conviction. Ask an addict if that’s the way sobriety happens. It’s not. It takes work, pain, prayer, time, and lots of steps. The process reminds us that we are flawed human beings who cannot take mighty leaps over tall buildings and bend steel with our bare hands.

Hate comes from a place that dehumanizes people with slurs and descriptions that negates their very humanity. Hitler did it with the Jewish people, and it’s happening now against the immigrant population, and really against every person who has dark skin. As Christians, we reject that thinking and uphold people as created in the image and likeness of God. “God created humans in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female God created them.” (Gen 1:27) Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

There is a story about a nun in El Salvador who went to the police station every day to plead for fair treatment for a man who was arrested. She was so persistent that eventually the man was released, and then the police arrested the officer who originally arrested the released man. The nun continued her daily pleading for just treatment, but now she pleaded for the arrested officer.

There are two very big realizations we are called to internalize: (1) Each one of us and all of us are created in the image and likeness of God, and (2) God loves all of us totally and unconditionally. These are the foundations – the first steps, if you will – that lead us to prayer. And prayer will lead us home.

Prayer is the place where we must dig in and keep going, keep going, face the pain, take those tiny steps and RISK praying for someone whose words and actions we despise. To be willing to go deep with prayer may raise up our anger and disgust, and we may want to resist the whole thing and go watch some re-runs on TV. (Personal disclosure: that’s my go-to way of decompressing.)

But what I want most of all is to be close to Jesus. To know deeply how much Jesus loves me and to love Jesus with all that I am. And if that is my true desire in life, then the way to it is to go through the prayer that leads me to accept that Jesus loves everyone else just as much as me. Thomas Merton once reflected on himself and his relationship with God in a way that reassures my faulty self that whatever steps I take toward God brings me closer to the way of perfection that God seeks:

Lord, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot
know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

I have been ‘nudged’ in my prayers to pray for ICE Agents. ‘Nudging’ is my way of
describing a thought or idea or impulse that feels like it’s coming from the Spirit. It catches me unawares, and I walk around with it for a while to discern if it jives with Jesus’ love. We have all seen or experienced the terrifying violence ICE Agents exhibit in breaking down doors and grabbing people of color out of their homes, off the streets, and out of their cars. We have seen how casually they murdered two American citizens in Minneapolis.

And the masks on their faces? Knowing they are anonymous and in a mob with other anonymous agents gives a sense of power, unaccountability, and permission to be as violent as they like. This used to be described as “mob mentality,” but it’s coming from the government’s representatives. They are imposing and threatening, hoping the people will cow before them.

As I prayed with this, and walked around with it, I realized that regardless of their choice to appear anonymous, they are not anonymous to God. God knows each and every ICE Agent – their names, their families, their upbringings, all the emotions and events that have drawn them to choose to do evil. I believe God misses them. God wants them to come home, to a place where compassion and respect rule the day. Perhaps some agents fear they have gotten in over their heads, perhaps some are so deeply entrenched in hate that they no longer
feel any other emotion. I don’t know about any of this for sure. I’m just trying to find ways to view the image of an ICE Agent as a person whom God once touched with love.

I do not believe my praying for ICE Agents will change who they are, although I will never deny the possibility of miracles. I believe that my prayer will change how I view them and will help me be ready for the time when I stand in front of them with my fellow peaceful protesters. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your loving God.”

Yes Jesus, yes.