"Love your enemies" Sunday 23rd February

Sunday 23rd February

This Sunday’s Gospel contains some of the most famous and powerful words of Jesus’ preaching: “Love your enemies” . It is taken from Luke’s Gospel but is also found in Matthew’s account of the “Beatitudes”. Jesus delivered it in Galilee at the beginning of his public life: it is, almost like, a “manifesto” presented to all, in which he asks for his disciples’ agreement, proposing his radical model of life to them and indeed to us.
But what do his words mean? Why does Jesus ask us to love our enemies, that is, a love which seems to go against the grain, which seems to be beyond us?
Actually, Jesus’ proposal is necessary because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness. This “more” comes from God: it is his mercy which was made flesh in Jesus and which alone can “tip the balance” of the world from evil to good, starting with that small and decisive place where so much change begins, that is in the individual human heart.
 
This Gospel passage is rightly considered the perfect example of the Christian ideal of non-violence. It does not consist in succumbing to evil, as a false interpretation of “turning the other cheek” claims, but in responding to evil with good and thereby breaking the chain of injustice.
For Christians, non-violence is not merely tactical behaviour but a person’s way of being, the attitude of someone who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he or she is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.

 
Love of our enemy constitutes the heart of the “Christian revolution”, a revolution not based on economics, politics or media power: the revolution of love, a love that does not rely ultimately on human resources but is a gift of God. A love which comes by trusting solely and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Here is the power of the Gospel which silently changes the world!
More and more in our modern world we are tempted to view others as the enemy, and to view enemies as targets to be destroyed. Jesus offers us an alternative view and an alternative course of action. To respond to violence with peace, to injustice with justice and to hate with love.