Can we be kind?: Homily for Thursday, September 11, 2025

In a world that seems filled with evil, can we be kind? The readings today provide for us the characteristics of Christians. Just imagine what our world could be if we all lived out of these values. Readings for Today.

Table of Contents

Can we be kind?

This has been an interesting few weeks. Not too long ago, there was the school shooting at an Annunciation School in Minneapolis. Then, there was another event that captured the attention of the Internet. The woman who became known as “Phillies Karen.” She wanted a baseball. Apparently, a father ran quite far from where his seat was, and wound up with the baseball and gave it to his son. And this woman went charging over to him, yelling and screaming that it was her ball. The father ultimately gave the ball back, much to the sadness of his son.

Yesterday, there was a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point, was shot to death. It seems, whether in very significantly tragic ways like the shootings I mentioned, or in ways that aren’t so significant, after all, what’s the value of a baseball, a regular foul ball, not even a significant moment in the game? What’s the value? What’s the price of our kindness?

St. Paul, in the first reading, lists a whole bunch of things that we are to put on, like clothing. The ways in which we are to be identified by the qualities we possess. Heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. As the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these, put on love. That is the bond of perfection.

These are not easy things. Religious life, for example, is sometimes referred to as the school of charity, teaching us how to be more loving, to be more kind, to be more prayerful. In fact, that’s the pledge that we make to the world as Catholics, that our lives will become so attractive by the ways in which we live that others will want to join us.

But we live in a world, it seems, and I don’t know whether it’s increasing or not, but it certainly feels that way to me. We live in a world that seems to be less and less kind. When 9/11 happened, and it was a really much earlier and much more significant event, I think, if you lived on the East Coast, almost everybody that I knew, including myself, had been to the World Trade Center. We knew where it was, we saw it, we used it as a landmark when we were in New York to know how to get to this place or that place. A number of the people, the college students, I lived in a college town at the time, the high school students I served, knew people that were impacted by 9/11. Some tragically, because they lost their lives.

There was one student whose sister was going for a job interview that day in the World Trade Center. At the last minute, it was canceled. An interesting circumstance that saved her life. It’s hard to be kind. When this gospel reading, when I read this, I remember there are certain moments where you are vividly impacted by something. And the reading of this gospel was one of them. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Because for the first time in my life, I could actually identify an enemy.

Before then, it was easy. Love your enemies. Well, I couldn’t really name someone that I would consider my enemy. But all that changed after 9/11. And many other things changed after 9/11. For a short period of time after 9/11, churches were full. People were coming. Their lives had been turned upside down. But in the long run, after 9/11, we saw much more of a rise in mental illness. People dealt more with anxiety and depression. So what do we make of this day in our country and the readings we have today?

Firstly, as Jesus points out in the gospel, doing these things that he asks us to do, loving enemies, praying for persecutors, turning the other cheek, they don’t come to us naturally. They come to us through the gift of grace. We’re able to do so because we open our hearts to the grace of God.

And I would suggest that the things that St. Paul mentions come to us the same way, through the grace of God, especially when we’re trying to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient, bearing with one another, forgiving one another to those people who are difficult for us to be kind to, to love, to show compassion to. On this day, let us ask the Lord to help us to become more aware of the grace of God in our lives so that we may be the types of persons open to God’s grace who do miraculous things.

kind — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:King_of_Hearts

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