Love Your Enemy

St. John Francis Regis

I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you... Matthew 5:44

I'm the type of person who wants justice for all. I not only worry about myself, but also everyone that I care about. So when I see that someone else is hurting that I care about, it makes me angry. I get into this mentality of, "How could they do that to you? What in the world is wrong with them?" And it almost feels like it has happened to me. So because this person/these people, hurt someone I care about, I see them as my enemy as well. And it's easy to be angry with someone else and blame them for someone else's unhappiness, but it is certainly terribly difficult to love them and pray for them.

But I must say, in my efforts to do so, my anger has diminished. Yes I think time plays a part, but prayer also does. And if you love your enemy and are praying for them, it's pretty hard to carry anger, and possible hate, in your heart. Mother Angelica from her Private and Pithy Lessons from the Scriptures says:

In the Lord's mind there can be no difference between a person who is holy, a person who is faulty, a person who is a big sinner, or a person who is pious. There's no difference. Jesus in His love always said He hated sin- hated sin- but He loved the sinner. We seldom separate the sin from the sinner. So, if I hate your way of life, I hate you. If I despise your faults, I despise you.

Love has a way of minimizing faults. They've got these minimizing bras- what do they do? They're supposed to make something big look like something small. Well, that's what our love should do. Love minimizes the faults of others.

Isn't Mother Angelica great? She always makes so much sense, even when I don't really want her to. But it's true. If we can look past all of these faults we have deemed others to have, and love them and pray for them, those faults don't seem so big anymore and we can get past them.

Is there someone in your life whose way of life you don't particularly agree with? How can you overcome your anger or hate?

Daily Readings:
2 Corinthians 8:1-9 Psalm 146:2, 5-9 Matthew 5:43-48