Saturday, March 6, 2004
1st Week of Lent

1st Reading: Dt 26:16-19
Gospel: Mt 5:43-48

Jesus said to his disciples, "You have heard that it was said: Love your neighbor and do not do good to your enemy. But this I tell you: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven. For he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good, and he gives rain to both the just and the unjust.

"If you love those who love you, what is special about that? Do not even tax collectors do as much? And if you are friendly only to your friends, what is so exceptional about that? Do not even the pagans do as much? For your part you shall be righteous and perfect in the way your heavenly Father is righteous and perfect."

Commentary

YOU have two kinds of "enemies", to be carefully distinguished. There are those whom you regard as enemies, and there are those who regard you as their enemy. If you do not regard the second kind as your enemies, they are not strictly your enemies; they are so only in their own opinion. If you refuse to reflect back their enmity to them, you can still be said to have opponents, but not strictly enemies. A real enemy is an alienated part of yourself, and if you refuse to make that alienation you have no real enemy. Even if the whole world hated you, you would have no enemies! Enmity grows by being reflected, and if you stopped reflecting it, in a while there would be less of it in the world. Usually we get into tangles of blaming and justifying and saying "who started it"; but all this is futile. The only way to stop it is to stop reflecting it. Gradually the tangle loosens and we are left with just ourselves, variously wounded and fearful. We are God's boisterous children. To know that is to know some kind of love.

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