Lenten Lesson - Loving Our Enemies

Today, Fr. Anthony continues to keep it real while talking about the great challenge of loving our enemies.  

Love your enemies.

Matthew 5:43-48 1 Corinthians 13: 1 John 13:34 Romans 15:1a

St. John Chrysostom:  [St. Paul] adorns love not only for what it has but also for what it has not. Love both elicits virtue and expels vice, not permitting it to spring up at all.

St John Chrysostom: For neither did Christ simply command to love but to pray. Do you see how many steps he has ascended and how he has set us on the very summit of virtue? Mark it, numbering from the beginning.

·      A first step is not to begin with injustice.

·      A second, after one has begun, is not to vindicate oneself by retaliating in kind.

·      A third, to refuse to respond in kind to the one who is injuring us but to remain tranquil.

·      A fourth, even to offer up one’s self to suffer wrongfully.

·      A fifth, to give up even more than the wrongdoer wishes to take.

·      A sixth, to refuse to hate one who has wronged us.

·      A seventh, even to love such a one.

·      An eighth, even to do good to that one.

·      A ninth, to entreat God himself on our enemy’s behalf.

Do you perceive how elevated is a Christian disposition? Hence its reward is also glorious.

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Why should we love our enemies? Fear of punishment, desire for reward?  To become holy as God is holy: NOT TRANSACTIONAL.

Practical truth – NOT JUST “who is my neighbor” BUT ALSO “who is my enemy?” 

Let’s stop putting people into categories of who deserves love or prayer and live – and suffer - for the salvation of all.  That's the way God does it and that's the way we must do it, too.