"Love Your Enemies"
Saturday, February 28th Readings Reflection: Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Christ’s command in today’s Gospel is a difficult one, a precept with which we all struggle at some point in our lives. In a world in which the meaning of love is often distorted and misunderstood, I thought it appropriate to turn to the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to provide clarity and a practical application of Christ’s command in our own lives.
St. Thomas defines love as willing the good of another. He points out that both love and hatred can be understood on two levels. The first is that of the flesh, whereby our natural inclination arises to hate our enemy. The second is that of our reason, whereby we restrain the desires of our flesh to harm our enemy. St. Thomas explains that we should strive against our natural inclination to hate our enemy, writing that we should “destroy” this perception of another as our enemy (Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew). By our reason, we should love our enemies by willing their good. As an act of the will, this does not mean that we necessarily feel any emotion of love toward our enemies, but rather, we consciously choose to cooperate with divine grace to will everything necessary for the person’s salvation.
St. Thomas makes a distinction between familiarity, or friendship, with a person and the common love with which we are bound to love our enemies. In a friendship, we share a “special affection” toward another, which St. Thomas writes is the result of “many goods” that we have received from the other (Commentary on Matthew). In this way, a friendship is seen as a mutual communion between two people. In the case of our enemies, it is not always possible and sometimes even completely imprudent to have a friendship with them.
When no friendship is possible with our enemies, or when no reconciliation is either possible or prudent, it is sufficient to love our enemies with what St. Thomas calls a common love. He explains that the end or purpose of this common love is the eternal salvation of those whom we love. We must love all people with this common love, whereby we will their good, which is ultimately their eternal salvation. St. Thomas explains that “it would be against this precept [to love our enemies] if I desired all men to be saved except my enemy” (Commentary on Matthew).
Of course, St. Thomas writes, we should ultimately strive to love our enemies with a special love beyond merely this common love in order to attain true Christian perfection. We see the perfect example of this special love for one’s enemies in the way Christ treated those who hated Him during His earthly life. We should pray for the grace to love our enemies with this truly Christian love, for Christ Himself calls us to be perfect in today’s Gospel reading.
On this second Saturday of Lent, as we meditate on Our Lord’s command to love our enemies, may we take for our example and inspiration Christ’s Passion and Death. Our Lord suffered the most bitter agonies—physically, mentally, and spiritually—at the hands of those who hated Him. Despite this, He forgave them even as He hung dying on the Cross, gazing upon them with the same love with which He gazes upon the whole world. May this loving gaze of our crucified God awaken within our hearts a desire to love our enemies more perfectly in imitation of Him, and may we devote ourselves to our Lenten penances with a newfound fervor and desire to offer our sufferings for the conversion of sinners and for the salvation of those whom we consider to be our enemies.
