LOVE YOUR ENEMIES AND PRAY FOR YOUR PERSECUTORS

TUESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP 

1 Kings 21:17-29; Ps 51:3-6,11,16; Mt 5:43-48

Love your Enemies and Pray for your Persecutors

The elegance of the new City of God, which the Father constructs on the foundation of the sacred humanity of his Beloved Son, is deducible from its foundation Jesus Christ laid with the New Commandments. His sermon on the Mount contains this foundation upon which he constructed the mystical City. The sermon is the foundation in that it is the summary or principle of the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, on earth. Since the life of the Son of Man is that of the Eternal Word of God in his human nature, it follows then that the foundation is the Eternal Word of God. He also laid down the precepts of charity as the high wall surrounding the mystical City of God. They form a high wall to keep the old and corrupted human nature away from the holy City. The Lord revealed this to his disciples when the rich man, who came in search of eternal life, went away on hearing the requirement for entrance into the holy City illumined by the Lamb of God. At his departure, the Lord commented that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. To add to his disciples’ astonishment, he revealed that it is impossible for human nature but possible for God alone.

Thus, we consider the precepts of charity in the sermon as a high wall that human nature can never scale. “You have learnt how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way, you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike.” The new precepts of charity underscore the teaching of our Lord on offering no resistance to the wicked man. It is not enough that we are offering no resistance to those who attack us; that is a defensive tactic or strategy for the redeemed; the offensive or attacking strategy is the precept of charity he puts before us in today’s passage. To overcome the spread of evil propagated through the unjust actions of the assailants, we must aim at planting God’s love in the hearts of the assailants or our perceived enemies. Thus, charity is the most effective weapon of light to arrest the assailants and inoculate the seed of evil planted by the evil one, the real enemy of man. The kingdom of heaven spreads only through this most effective weapon of charity. The precepts of charity enable us to wield the divine weapon with which God saves the world. It makes us sons of the heavenly Father as revealed by Christ the Lord.

We are to understand the sun and the rain, which God sends to everyone indiscriminately, not just physically, but to include all the necessary physical and spiritual benefits and graces that souls need to bear fruits of repentance and eternal life. The evidence of this is in the story of the prophet Elijah’s confrontation with King Ahab following divine directive. “The Lord says this: You have committed murder; now you usurp as well. For this—and the Lord says this—in the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, the dogs will lick your blood too.” It would seem that this is a punishment meted out to Ahab for his heinous sin, but that is not the case. It is the prophet foretelling the restoration of natural balance from the imbalance which the unjust and wicked actions of Ahab and Jezebel caused. The Lord’s intervention through his prophet is basically to reveal these consequences of the evil actions and to help the king open himself up for the action of God’s word in him, which is like the sun and the rain causing things to grow and to decay accordingly, thereby renewing the face of the earth. “When Ahab heard these words, he tore his garments and put sackcloth next to his skin and fasted; he slept in the sackcloth; he walked with slow steps.” Our love for our enemies and prayers for our persecutors are to facilitate the sowing of the word of God in them to bring about repentance (death to evil self) and renewal through the graces that God gives to good men and bad men, honest and dishonest men alike. Obeying the precepts of charity in the name of Jesus Christ and through his Holy Spirit, we pass through Jesus Christ as the gate of the mystical City of God into the mystical City.   

Let us pray: Grant us, merciful Father, the graces we need to die to self and truly live by the Spirit of your Son Jesus Christ, that our lives may truly be the holy proclamation of the Gospel of your eternal kingdom of heaven.