Love your enemies… Matthew 5:44
None of his other commandments so deeply and directly show us who Jesus is and how he wants us to live. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love, and God loves each person infinitely, regardless of their response to him. Jesus calls us to share in this love. “Be perfect,” he goes on to say, “just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (verse 48).
Yet, in some situations, loving those who have hurt us can seem impossible. We can love them only with God’s help. In really serious cases, it becomes apparent that only with God’s help we can even desire his help to love them. The resistance to forgiveness and love can be very strong.
In the Gospel, immediately following this command, Jesus gives us the Our Father. In it, he teaches us to pray “forgive us …as we forgive” (Matthew 6:12). Jesus seems to be inviting us to pray not just for ourselves, but for each other, that all of us would have the grace to love those who have “trespassed against us.” So let us hold each other up in prayer, asking God to enable each of us to experience this miracle.
Kevin Perotta
Originally published February 28, 2015
