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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…
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