"When you love those who hate you, you confuse and confound them, taking away the very energy that feeds their hatred.
We want God to behave as we would - that is to say, to withdraw his love from those who don't deserve it and to give his love to those who do deserve it. But this is just not the way God operates.
Why should you pray for someone who is persecuting you? Why shouldn't you be allowed at least to answer him in kind - an eye for an eye? Because God doesn't operate that way, and you are being drawn into the divine life.
Why should you turn the other cheek to someone who has struck you? Because it's practical? No - because that's the way God operates, and you're being called into the divine life.
Why should you go beyond simply loving those who love you? Because that's the way God operates; he loves the saints and he loves the worst of sinners.
Is any of this easy to do? No, of course not. Are we able to get to this state through willing it, through earnest practice? Of course not. That's why love is referred to as a theological virtue. It is the sheerest participation in the divine life, and it can only come from God. But God does offer this gift to us when we ask for it in prayer."
- Bishop Robert Barron
The thought of loving someone who has been cruel or insolent or rude or downright wicked is difficult to contemplate. Certainly love ( filial or romantic) doesn't come into it at first, if ever. Treating these people as we would wish to be treated is difficult if we refuse to put ourselves in their situation. But we must try to see things from their point of view as this may help. We may suddenly find we have a small amount of compassion for them which if we let it, grows and grows and the 'love' for them may blossom. Whether they love us back is another matter! They may become even more vindictive because to be loved by someone we have treated badly is a torture.
ReplyDeleteYes! There is a verse in Proverbs which says something like - Be nice to somebody who treats you badly, and it's like putting hot coals on their head. Yes.
DeleteI will also say, though, that to "love" someone seems more and more to me as just always being aware that: 1. This person is made in the image and likeness of God, and as long as they are alive, they can change their ways, and 2. Jesus would die for them again, and that's who God is. So, you don't even have to see anything to like in the person, or to comprehend, because with some, as you say, it's well-nigh impossible. (I think of Hillary Clinton or George Soros, lol) It's almost like you (not you, per se!) only need to be there and not react so readily to them. A matter of seeing differently, and "being" differently.
Yes! You put that really well. You are saying that just being there for them is enough. We are then ready to respond to whatever they or God wants us to do, if anything. This is an interesting thought. xoxo
DeleteRight. I think we worry because what's supposedly expected of us seems more than we can possibly do. But it's a matter of attention and respect, it seems to me. And being ready and willing. xo
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