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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider Love your enemies

Love your enemies

Published Mar 15, 2025 07:14 am

REFLECTIONS TODAY

Gird your loins

At the time of Jesus, the Jews saw the Gentiles as enemies and thus should be shunned and avoided. In the Gospel. Jesus speaks to the Jews who often misinterpreted God’s Law, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lv 19:18). They meant it to say, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” 

They reappropriated it as they saw fit. God’s commandment is crystal clear: we must love our enemies. It is not God who will benefit from this commandment but us. By forgiving our enemies, we also deepen our recognition of our own capability and courage to forgive.

 It is difficult to humble oneself in the face of one’s enemy because according to the wisdom of the world, humility is cowardice and defeat. But we know the feeling of forgiving the other. The act of forgiving liberates our hearts from anxiety and fear. In forgiving those who have offended us, we free not only our enemies but also ourselves. 

Let us use our capability to forgive as an opportunity towards change. If we ourselves were forgiven, why would we bar ourselves from the benefits of forgiving?

First Reading • Dt 26:16-19 

Moses spoke to the people, saying: 16“This day the Lord, your God, commands you to observe these statutes and decrees. Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. 

Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice. 

And today the Lord is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments, he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made, and you will be a people sacred to the Lord, your God, as he promised.” 

Responsorial Psalm • Ps 119 “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!” 

Gospel • Matthew 5:43-48

Jesus said to his disciples: “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 and sisters only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.

 

 

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