Sermon 386

SERMO 386

On the Love of Enemies

How enemies are to be loved.

Pay attention, my brothers, to the love which Divine Scripture praises so highly that it equals nothing to it. When God encourages us to love one another, does He only urge that you love someone who loves you? This is mutual love and it does not suffice for God: He wanted us to reach even to loving our enemies, saying: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you; that you may be children of your Father in heaven, who makes His sun rise on the good and the evil, who sends rain on the just and unjust. What do you say? Do you love your enemy? You might respond: Due to weakness, I cannot. But improve and act so that you can: especially because you are about to pray to the Judge, whom no one can deceive, who will handle your case. Therefore, appeal to this Judge, where no interpreter disturbs, no official removes, no advocate is bribed who can pour out prayers for you, nor say words you have not learned: but the very Only Son of God, equal to the Father, sitting at the Father's right hand, His counselor, your judge, taught you a few words that any simple person can hold and say, and in them, He established your cause; He taught you the heavenly law on how to pray. But perhaps you will respond: Through whom do I ask? Through myself or through another? He who taught you to pray Himself pleads for you because you were guilty. Rejoice, because He who is now your advocate will then be your judge. Therefore, because you are about to pray, you are about to handle your case with a few words, coming to the words: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. For God says to you: What do you give Me that I may forgive you your debts? What gift do you offer, what sacrifice of your consciousness do you place on My altars? Immediately, He taught you what to ask and what to offer. You ask: Forgive us our debts: and you offer, what? As we also forgive our debtors. You owe to Him who cannot be deceived; you also have a debtor. God says to you: You are my debtor, he is your debtor; I do for you, my debtor, what you will do for your debtor. You offer Me a gift by sparing your debtor. You ask Me for mercy, do not be lazy in showing mercy yourself. Pay attention to what Scripture says: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Do not offer a sacrifice without mercy; because your sins will not be forgiven unless you offer mercy. But perhaps you say: I have no sins. However cautious you are, brother, while living in the world in the flesh, you act amidst pressures and distresses, and you are involved in countless temptations; you cannot be without sin. Surely God says to you: Be assured of sin, do not forgive if there is nothing that I should forgive you, but rather demand if you owe nothing: however, if you are a debtor, rejoice more that you have a debtor, in whom you can do what should be done to you. Listen to me and scrutinize yourself, because even among the few who can truly pray the Lord's Prayer, say truly: Lord, forgive me, as I also forgive. Not falsely, not feignedly, but truly from the heart, so that it may be true also for you. For if he who has wronged you, who has sinned against you, asks for forgiveness, and you forgive; then you can securely say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. For if you resist the one asking, you will also be disregarded when you ask. You closed yourself against the one knocking, you will find it closed when you knock. For if you open the bowels of mercy to the one asking you, so will God open to you when you ask Him. Now I speak to those who ask forgiveness from their Christian brothers and are not granted it. Behold, if you grant it, you will pray securely. But the one who asks you, and if you do not grant it, how will you be secure? For anyone who has sinned and has not been meritorious of forgiveness, do not fear, appeal to God Himself and your own: for they are debts: can a servant demand debts which the Lord has forgiven? If perhaps he did not ask who sinned against you, if he does not seek forgiveness; if he has sinned and also is still angry, what will you do? Will you forgive or not forgive? Behold, you did not forgive. Why? Because he did not ask. If you did not forgive because he did not ask, do not hesitate in the Lord's Prayer, say it securely, do not strike your breast because you did not forgive the one who did not ask. Therefore, the one who did not ask, remains: it is demanded, it is absolutely demanded from him: nonetheless, let perfect love be in you, pray for the one not asking: because you pray for someone in great danger.

The example of Christ praying for those insulting and killing. The example of Stephen.

Here now, attend to your Master and Lord, not sitting on a throne, but hanging on a tree, surrounded on all sides by crowds of enemies and saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. See the Master, hear the imitator. Did the Lord Christ then pray for those who were asking, and not rather for those insulting and killing Him? Did the physician abandon his office because the madman was raging? Say indeed: Forgive them, for they know not what they do. They kill the Savior, because they do not seek salvation. And contrariwise, perhaps you will say: And when can I do what the Lord could? Why do you say this? Take note of where he does this; observe that he did this on the cross, not in heaven. For God is always in heaven with the Father: but on the cross, he was a man for you, where he offered Himself as an example to all. For He indeed uttered this voice for you, so that it might be heard by all. For He could have prayed for them in silence, but then you would not have the example. But if the Lord is too much for you, let not the servant be too much. Can you not imitate your Lord when he hung on the cross? Attend to Stephen, His servant, when he was being stoned. First, he said as a servant to the Lord: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; and after this, kneeling down, he said: Lord, do not hold this sin against them: and when he had said this, he fell asleep in the rest of love. He found the richest peace because he wished peace for his enemies. Did he then pray for those who were asking, and not for those who were raging, those who were stoning and killing him? You have the example, learn, see how he stood praying for himself, and kneeled for them. Brothers, do we think that he loves them more than himself? Indeed, standing as a just man for himself, he was easily heard. For the wicked, it was necessary to kneel. Therefore, he showed love even to enemies by asking for forgiveness. Therefore, brothers, for the sake of the security of the Lord’s prayer, forgive those who ask from the heart, and so that the Lord may forgive you your sins in this mortal body and in the future unto eternity, etc.