Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Having defended his apostleship, St. Paul now begins to remind the Corinthians of the collection to help Christians of Jewish origin in the Holy Land. Their troubles started before the Corinthians came to know Christ, when famine struck during the reign of Claudius. Not being helped by their ethnically fellow Jews, they needed help from Christians. And so, at that time, Paul and Barnabas brought aid from the first Gentile Christian community at Antioch. Now, two or three years after Nero succeeded Claudius, St. Paul was preparing another collection. The Corinthians had already said that they wanted to help, and soon St. Paul would be coming with other disciples to collect their contributions. To encourage them to be generous, he tells them of the extraordinary generosity of the Churches to their north in the province of Macedonia. They have given until it hurts. He does not command the Corinthians to give. They are free to give nothing, or a little, or a lot, but he would have them show the genuineness of their love by their concern for others. To the example of the Macedonians, St. Paul adds the example of Christ. Now, there's someone who really gave until it hurt. This is the gem in today's reading. "For your sake He became poor, although He was rich, so that by His poverty you might become rich."
With these words, the Apostle tacitly tells the Christians that if they wish to imitate Christ closely, they should enrich the poor with their alms, and even impoverish themselves so as to enrich others. What St. Paul says is very profound. St. Francis understood it, and that is why he wanted to be poor. He deemed it an honor to be like our King, Jesus Christ, who, though He was Lord of all, willed for our sake to become the servant of all, and although He was rich and glorious in majesty, came as one poor and despised in our humanity. Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Human nature is infinitely poor in comparison with the divine nature, and so by the Incarnation Christ became poor in a way that we could never match. Furthermore, He did not merely choose to become a man, but a poor man, an indigent man, who has nowhere to lay His head. This poverty made us rich, because by it He redeemed us and made us partakers of the divine nature, which is the greatest riches that anyone could possibly have.
So while we cannot equal Him, because we do not start as God, we can imitate Him by giving up such riches as we have in order to make others rich and above all rich in God's grace. This is what St. Francis did, giving up every worldly possession to preach and sacrifice himself for the salvation of souls, and this you can also do, at least in a small way, when you give up some of your possessions to help someone in need, as St. Paul asked the Corinthians to do. This is called for by the commandment to love your neighbor, of which Jesus is speaking in today's Gospel. The Hebrew word for neighbor can also mean friend or companion, and this helps us to understand how love your neighbor came to be explained as love your friend, but hate your enemy. Jesus explains that this was a misunderstanding. "You must not hate your enemy, but love your enemy, because this is what your Father in heaven does. He gives sun and rain to the good and the wicked. He gives to His friends and to His enemies."
Loving your friends and companions but hating your enemies is not something that God would need to command, if that was what He wanted. Sinners do this even though they break God's commandments. To greet your friends and shun your enemies is nothing praiseworthy. Pagans do it without having ever heard of the word of God. Our Father in heaven is not looking for mediocrity, but perfection. And though we'll never become truly perfect, we always have to try to improve. We must always strive to be worthy sons, or more worthy sons, or perhaps less unworthy sons, of our heavenly Father, who loved His enemies so much that He sent His Son to die for them. Praying for our enemies is the least that we can do. In our enemies, we love the person, and we hate the sin, because this is what God does. The person is not inseparable from the evil that he does, and this is what repentance is all about.
So loving our enemies means desiring that they love God. It means desiring their conversion and sanctification. And this supposes that we are dealing with an enemy who can love God. The demons cannot, they cannot change, and therefore we are not to love demons even though they are our enemies. It is rather our human enemies whom we must love because they can change, however unlikely that may seem. God loves His enemies by offering them the opportunity and sufficient grace to change. So He gives them sun and rain and other things they need to live so that they will have time to be able to repent. And He sent His Son to become poor that they might become rich, rich above all with the divine nature.
As sons of God, we should follow this example as well as we can. So then, as St. Paul says, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. As God makes what is necessary for life available to everyone, even His enemies, so we must extend to everyone those things that we can do for all. St. Paul, quoting Proverbs, says, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." St. Augustine explains, "The coals of fire are the burning lamentations of repentance, by which the man's pride is healed, and he grieves that he has been an enemy of the man who relieves his misery."
Thus, even by providing for their natural needs, we may serve their supernatural good. We should also pray, as St. Paul urged, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. We should pray especially for the people who are in one way or another significant in our lives, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and enemies. To prayer it is good to add sacrifice, following the example of Jesus, Mary, and countless saints. 
We close with the words of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, "Let us become like Christ, since Christ also became like us. He became poor that we through His poverty might become rich. He took the form of a slave that we might regain freedom. He descended that we might be lifted up. He was tempted that we might be victorious. He was dishonored to glorify us. He died to save us. He ascended to draw Himself to us, who lay below in the fall of sin. Let us give everything, offer everything, to the one who gave Himself as a ransom and an exchange for us. But one can give nothing comparable to oneself."
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.