Loving One’s Enemies (Matt 5:43-48)

God has many enemies; the atheist who mocks him, the agnostic who is indifferent and the lapsed that is worldly minded. Each in their own way has marked themselves against God. Yet God in return loves them and asks the same of us in return. We who have fewer enemies and whose enemies are less passionate and less violent are called to imitate God. Our hearts, like his, are meant to become a wide open space where even our enemies can come and take refuge.

Matthew 5:43-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

+ Fr. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock, CFR
Sacred Heart of Jesus Friary
Ft. Worth, TX
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