Loving our enemies

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

CHRIST clearly said, nay, commanded us to do so. (cfr. Lk 6,27) We, of course, could not help but be incredulous by these words of Christ. Why oh why should we love our enemies when our very basic common sense would tell us the opposite?

We truly need to pause a little to find why Christ, who is supposed to be the embodiment of love, the very essence of God, would say so. And the only answer we can find is that precisely God, who is full of love, cannot hate anyone or anything. And Christ showed it to us by offering his life for all our sins. He even offered forgiveness to those who crucified him.

Whenever we have to deal with our enemies in whatever form they can come to us—whether in the form of persons or contradictions, difficulties, trials, failures, etc.—we should be quick to acknowledge that we are actually given a chance, an invitation to grow in love, to conform our love to the real love that Christ has shown us.

Let’s also remember that Christ himself commanded us to love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34) Our love can only be genuine when it channels the very love Christ has for all of us. We need to go beyond our human ways of loving in order to adopt the love Christ has for us.

For this, the challenge we have to face is how to free ourselves from the controlling grip of our senses and reasoning, of our own human consensus and estimations of things, and to let ourselves be guided by the mysterious ways of our faith, full of wisdom and charity albeit always accompanied by sacrifices.

This would require nothing less than God’s grace which we can always safely presume is given to us freely and abundantly. What we have to demand on ourselves is a lot of humility, of simplicity and obedience. Pride makes us deaf and blind, insensitive to the ways of God, and makes us our own guide, instead of God.

To be sure, if we follow this commandment, we would be loving God and others the way Christ himself has loved his Father and all of us. It’s a love that is totally inclusive on the part of the lover, though it may be rejected by the beloved.

It’s a love that would convert and transform us into another Christ, if not Christ himself (alter Christus, ipse Christus), for love, the real love that comes from God, has that power of making the lover united and identified with the beloved.

That is why God became man, and Jesus Christ emptied himself completely to assume our human nature in its best and worst conditions. This love shown to us by Christ is the standard of our love. Therefore, loving others the way Christ loves us is loving Christ in others, and thus transforms us to Christ.

To be concrete about all this, we can practice and develop this love simply by being demanding on ourselves while being very understanding, forgiving, lenient on others, always trying to find excuses for them, eager to carry their burden.

Especially now in the contention-prone areas of politics and social media, where all kinds of ideas and comments come, including the most reckless, thoughtless, mannerless ones, we have wonderful opportunities to live and develop this true love.

Let’s try to examine ourselves on how our attitude and behavior are when confronted with unpleasant views and resistance from others. Can we really say that we are truly loving our enemies?

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com