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This Sunday’s gospel contains some of the most typical and forceful words of Jesus’ preaching: “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27).
It is taken from Luke’s gospel but is also found in Matthew’s (5:44), in the context of the programmatic discourse that opens with the famous “beatitudes.” Jesus delivered it in Galilee at the beginning of his public life: it is, as it were, a “manifesto” presented to all, in which he asks for his disciples’ adherence, proposing his model of life to them in radical terms.
But what do his words mean? Why does Jesus ask us to love precisely our enemies, that is, a love which exceeds human capacities?
Actually, Christ’s proposal is realistic 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 “world” which is the human heart.
This gospel passage is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian nonviolence. It does not consist in succumbing to evil, as a false interpretation of “turning the other cheek” (see Luke 6:29) claims, but in responding to evil with good (see Romans 12:17-21) and thereby breaking the chain of injustice.
One then understands that for Christians, nonviolence is not merely tactical behavior but a person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love and power that he is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love and truth alone.
Love of one’s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the “Christian revolution,” a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political, or media power; … a love that does not rely ultimately on human resources but is a gift of God, which is obtained by trusting solely and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Here is the newness of the gospel which silently changes the world! Here is the heroism of the “lowly” who believe in God’s love and spread it, even at the cost of their lives.
Let us ask the Virgin Mary, docile disciple of the Redeemer who helps us to allow ourselves to be won over without reserve by that love, to learn to love as he loved us, to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful (see Luke 6:36).
—Angelus, February 18, 2007
An excerpt from The Joy of Knowing Christ.
Click here to purchase “The Joy of Knowing Christ.”
Responding to evil with good, surely breaks the chain of injustice. During this lent, may we all be doers of the Word of God and not hearers only and
may we never forget that we are called to PROJECT Jesus to the world in all we say and do.