Love Your Enemies
A homily by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
“In a word you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
Jesus said to his disciples, “You have heard the commandment: You shall love your countryman but hate your enemy. My command to you is: love your enemies; pray for your persecutors. This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Father. For his sun rises on the bad and the good, he rains on the just and the unjust. If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that? Do not tax collectors do as much? And if you greet your brothers only, what is so praiseworthy about that? Do not pagans do as much? In a word you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Homily: The Essence of Christianity: Loving the Unlovable
What we have just read is part of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Through three chapters, the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew’s Gospel our Lord compares the Old Testament morality with the New. He goes to the commandments, “You have heard it was said, but I tell you…., you’ve heard it was said, but I tell you….” Whatever else is true about Christianity it is that the moral demands of the followers of Christ are much harder. They require much more of us than was ever required of the people in the Old Law. But if there is one commandment that Christ raised to super human heights, it was the commandment of loving our neighbor.
In the Old Testament the Jews were told to love their neighbor. What neighbor meant was one of their own fellow Israelites. What neighbor meant was someone who was related to you by kinship of blood, or the neighbor is one who was close to you; intimate with you. But Christ’s teaching is super humanly higher.
We never give a thought, pardon me, second thought to the fact that in all the languages of the world including English, we speak of some people as being lovable and other people being unlovable. Obviously, lovable people are those we can love. Unlovable people are those who we cannot love. This in one sentence is the heart of Christian morality. We are told to love unlovable people. Say that again. We are told by Christ to love unlovable people.
Who are unlovable people? Oh, that’s easy: those who don’t love us, those who are not kind to us, thoughtful of us. Who are unlovable people? Those who offend us. Those who speak unkindly to us and about us. Who are the unlovable people? All those people who except for God becoming man and dying on the cross and meriting for us the grace to do the humanly impossible, we could not love. They are the unlovable people. But that in one declarative sentence is the essence of Christianity – loving the unlovable.
Orthodoxy without Charity is Not Christianity
We are living in the most convulsive age in human history. We are living in an age, our century, where there have been more martyrs for Christ than all the nineteen hundred years from Calvary put together. Yet, as deeply and as terrifyingly as our Faith is being challenged, let’s make sure we know what Christianity really is. Of course, we must believe. We must be orthodox believers. We must believe that Christ is the living God who became Man. We must believe that His mother is the Mother of God. We must believe that Jesus Christ is on earth in the Holy Eucharist. We must believe how the Bishop of Rome is the Vicar of Christ.
We call that orthodoxy. But I want to be very plain, orthodoxy is not enough. One of my favorite phrases is “orthodoxy without charity is not Christianity”.
In other words, we must have, dear God, a strong, dare I say it, heroic faith in our day. When bishops are openly declaring, “I, I am the Vicar of Christ”, we’d better have a strong faith. But faith, otherwise known as orthodoxy is not enough. It must be faith joined with selfless charity. And that my friends, that is what will convert (and I hope you agree with me) a paganized America.
Once a Christian nation, millions have lost their faith in Jesus Christ. But if we’re going to retrieve these lost Christians, some, sadly, members of our own family, people who are nearest and dearest to us, we must not only believe strongly, we must love selflessly, and of the very ones who don’t love us. It is then faith combined with Christ-like charity that will convert. And how our country needs re-conversion beginning with the two capitals of paganism in America. You may be surprised. They are Chicago and Detroit.
Lord Jesus, make us channels of your grace to others. Deepen our faith in you as our God; our trust in you as a source of all the strength we need in today’s unbelieving world. But above all, dear Jesus, give us something of your selfless love so that like you, we too may be willing to lay down our lives for those who do not love us, because in loving them we will be communicating grace from you through us to them, because dear Jesus, only faith and love can convert a sinful world. Jesus, we love you. Out of love for you we want to love those who do not love us, because in loving them we are showing how deeply we love you who died on Calvary out of love for us. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
