Love for One’s Enemies

27 But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not withhold your tunic as well. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.

35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

(Luke 6:27-36)

How difficult and hard to accept this passage of the Gospel is. It is truly a stumbling stone on which everyone in this world will, sooner or later in life, find themselves tripping.

Jesus speaks of love for one’s enemy — that is, for the one who opposes us day and night, whether through memory or through actions. The one who does everything possible to make our life difficult and place a thousand obstacles in our path. I have asked myself many times how it is possible to love such a person.

Frankly, I must admit, as a priest, that those whom I have encountered as enemies along the path of my human life I have managed to forgive — even those who attempted to take my very life. But with the same sincerity I must confess that I have never been able to forgive when those enemies belonged, or still belong, to the Church.

I have often wondered how Jesus was able to forgive the betrayal of Judas: “Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me” (Psalm 41:9).

And yet He asks this of all of us. In our humanity we realize, day after day, that we would so much like to become good and put these words into practice in our Christian lives. But then, the moment we are touched by trial and called to live them out, our world begins to spin, and none of us is able any longer to bring the words of this Gospel back to mind. There remains only the present memory of the wrong suffered, the facial expression of our “enemy,” and the words we hear, which begin to burn in our chest.

When everything returns to calm — according to each person’s own timing — then we begin to question ourselves. The thought that most often returns is that of our inability to have handled the situation.

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).

Therefore, by ourselves we can do nothing: every effort is useless. Every demonstration of affection is useless, every attempt to lead the one who opposes us to repentance so that he may come to his senses. I believe that all these things are useless in the face of those who hate us or act as our enemies; and yet we are called to live them.

The only heroic attitude any of us can adopt is, at the very least, to try not to repay evil with evil. I believe that praying for that person and striving not to inflict the same behaviour upon him truly makes a difference. But our human nature, as I said earlier, will never succeed in even remotely equalling what the Lord asks of us.

Only the Holy Spirit and the Grace of God can bring about such behaviours and spiritual dispositions. If God is not within us, then the situation will quickly deteriorate. Without God assisting us we can only lose everything — even Grace.

I have come very close to all of this. Unfortunately, as I have said, not everyone has known the Love of God, even though among men of the Church there often dwells the presumption that the clerical state somehow shields us from such trials.

When you have known the Love of God, then in that precise instant when the attack comes, you receive an inner illumination that stops you, that stays your hand, and immediately brings to mind what God has done for you and His great Love for you.

“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47).

Immediately I feel physically the cords that bind my wrists, and I become a prisoner of my own love for God. It is what prevents me from acting against my enemy. It is not passivity, it is not inability, it is not age: it is only a Love that binds me — a bond of blood and of the spirit.

I do not want to disappoint my Lord, and no one in this world will ever be able to separate me from Love — not even hell itself united against me. No one will succeed in taking Jesus from my heart, neither human nor spiritual creature.

This is my message for this week, which I hope, from an adult heart, may be an opportunity for reflection for each of you.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15:18).

“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:19).

“Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you” (1 John 3:13).

Father Ambrogio