True Enemy

That's such an extreme word—Enemy.

Who is your greatest, personal, true enemy?

If I have one, I don’t know about it.

But maybe I do have a secret personal enemy out there somewhere plotting against me.

We all have people we disagree with.

People with opposite views from ours on ideology, politics, propriety, and even morality.

We have people we’re competing with.

And people we’re disputing with over some business or social or personal matter.

But they’re not enemies; they’re neighbors.

At worst mere rivals.

To qualify as a true enemy they need to harbor a more intense, abiding malice.

They need to seek to inflict serious harm on us.

Serious physical, economic, emotional, or spiritual injury.

The law and the prophets said that we must love our neighbors.

And that would include our rivals.

But they said it was okay to hate our enemies.

Jesus says that’s not the case; we must love even those who are our true enemies.

As contrary to human nature as that may be

He does expect us to follow his direction.

He doesn’t say we have to like them.

He doesn’t say we have to be friends with them.

Or spend quality time with them.

But he does say we have to love them.

We have to pray for them.

We have to want for them to find eternal happiness with God.

Our old catechism answers apply equally to everyone – everyone.

Who made my enemy?  God made my enemy.

Why did God make my enemy? 

God made my enemy to know, love and serve God,

and to be happy with God forever in heaven.

God loves every person he created.

That includes my enemy.

And if God loves that enemy, just as he loves me,

Then I’d better love that enemy too.

It may not be quite so hard to love the more distant, impersonal enemies out there.

The ISIS zealots.

Outrageous terrorists and violent criminals in our own country.

We can be a bit more philosophical about them.

We can “understand” that the impersonal enemy is misguided or mentally unbalanced.

But when an enemy inflicts direct serious injury on us or our family or friends,

Love and forgiveness can seem impossible.

But it’s not.

Jesus gave us his own example.

In the midst of being brutally tortured, killed and abandoned.

Tortured and mocked for the pure deviant pleasure of the torturers.

He was still able to say:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

And he didn’t leave it at that.

He’s inspired many other examples, great and small, throughout the years.

If we look, we can find little examples every day.

We sometimes find dramatic examples.

Like John Paul II visiting and praying for the man who shot him.

Stunning examples.

Like that Amish community a few years ago.

Forgiving the man who murdered their little girls at their country schoolhouse.

Bringing meals to comfort the sorrowful and humiliated family of the murderer.

Hopefully, the wrongs we suffer will pale in comparison.

Hopefully we'll never even encounter a true personal enemy.

But, whether our enemy is distant and impersonal, or a true personal enemy.

Regardless of the wrong we suffer.

No matter how evil our enemy's acts may be.

Jesus calls us to forgive.

And to love that enemy.

For our own sake.

And for the sake of our world.

Tuesday 11th Week Ordinary Time

Mt 5:43-48      Read this Scripture @usccb.org