How To Love Your Enemy
You may very well have lived a long life saying the Our Father daily and when you came to the words, "and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," your soul was completely quiet and unruffled. Then one day something happens. It may all be your own fault. You may have a bad argument and the other one walks out on you bitter and full of wrath. Before you can think twice, you have an enemy. At first, you don't want to believe it. You say to yourself, he'll come around, just wait a little. But this happens to be one of those unfortunate cases where he does not come around. After awhile you may say that's perfectly ridiculous, and you may earnestly try to meet him, and in a casual way get things straightened out. But then, you find out that he's fed up with you and he has no intention whatsoever of having things as they were. Soon you will hear how he spoke about you on this or that occasion, and from those remarks you know now: you have an enemy.
Soon after this startling discovery, these words emerge from the depths of your memory and they take on a completely new meaning: "To the ones of old has been said, 'Love your friend and hate your enemy.' I, however, tell you, love your enemy!"
And now, a new period in your life begins: You try, you really try, to love your enemy; but how? There have been a number of different loves in your life and these you try to apply now to him: How you loved your parents when you were very young yourself—how you loved your best friend in school—how you loved in those unique weeks before your wedding—how you now love your own children. Then, there is in your heart love for your country, for your home town, for your home, for your old school and your neighborhood—it is perfectly amazing how many shades of love move a human heart during one short life. But, as hard as you may try—not one of them fits your purpose. Now, you almost get worried because there is that command: "I, however, tell you ... ," and you haven't yet found a way to fulfill it. This much you have learned, however, that the love for your enemy is a completely new love in your life and you have to discover it step by step.
All you are doing now is: You want to love your enemy. As you want to love him, you are getting very much concerned about him, and this is the first step. You realize that he really shouldn't be your enemy—nobody really should stubbornly resist reconciliation—and with an anxious heart you realize that it cannot do him much good.
As the natural outcome of this, your concern, you find yourself talking with God about your enemy. This is the second step. You say: "Dear Lord, please don't take this too seriously; I really don't think he means it quite the way it sounds. Don't forget how much 1 antagonized him, and please, dear Lord, I want you to know there is no bitterness in my heart against him whatever he might say or do." There's a great urge in your heart to make sure about this because you realize that if you'd get angry and bitter and have your own spiritual life badly influenced by all this, it would be partly his fault and he would be held responsible.
As time goes on, you discover that there is a change taking place in yourself. Since that person of whom you thought so highly, who was so close to you, and to whom you were so much attached has turned against you, you find that you get more and more detached from other people, because—what happened once, couldn't it happen any day again? And there you find that your enemy has done you a great service, and most eagerly you point that out in your next talks with God. This is the third step. However, even if it has helped you it should not continue. You would not want to die or want him to die, he still being your enemy. Now you begin to storm Heaven. "The return of the brother" becomes your foremost intention. It gets a big share of all Holy Masses and Communions, You ask all your friends to help you pray for a "certain intention." You have Masses said and, in a kind of perpetual novena, the Blessed Mother and your friends among the saints are constantly reminded to intercede. And whatever comes your way in the line of suffering is greeted with a smile, be it physical pain or mental anguish, because it can be used to be offered up for the most important person in your life, your enemy. This is the last step.
Now you have found the love for your enemy. It is completely different from all other loves, and it is very anxious and very unemotional. It resides mostly in your will, but let us hope that in the eyes of God it is a soaring fire which, in His own good time, will melt all the ice of resistance. And Our Lord's wish will be fulfilled: "That all may be one . . . and that they may be perfected in unity."
Excerpted from Integrity, Vol 6, No. 6, March 1952
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