The Greatest Challenge in Modern Times

Perhaps the most powerful and significant message etched into the gospels of Jesus Christ is this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength [and] ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-32). The command to love God first and foremost sounds reasonable, even if we are feeling rather lukewarm about our faith. The second part of this call to love others as we love ourselves doesn’t seem too outrageous either. The concept of loving others makes for great song lyrics as a matter of fact. The struggle to love others does not attack our sensibilities until we reach the verse in which Jesus states, “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:35).

We may find ourselves thinking that back in Jesus’ time people who were considered enemies were not as dreadful as our contemporary adversaries. We may believe that Jesus’ emphasis on love in the first century AD did not take into account just how impossible it could become in the future to imitate his generous spirit of love. When we read these gospel verses on the surface we can often detach ourselves from a personal obligation to internalize this message. It becomes very difficult to ask ourselves the deeper more reflective questions - how can we possibly love some people? We’ve been taught “love the sinner, hate the sin” but the lines between the sinner and his sins become quite blurred by our perceptions. It is only when we stop and look at the persons before us that we must ask ourselves the difficult questions and it is then that we are confronted with the challenge to love.

How can I love you?

• You are pointing a gun at me and your eyes seem to be filled with hatred.
• You have bombs strapped to your chest and I don’t know how you can value my life if you don’t value your own.

How can I love you?

• You have used your status or position to harm me or the ones I love.
• Your goal is to assume my guilt and exact your own justice upon me.

How can I love you?

• It seems hard for us to get passed our differences when the world around us continues to point them out.
• Your skin may be different than mine, your eyes are different, your beliefs are different - all I can see are the things that separate us.

How can I love you?

• You want to limit my rights so you can keep your rights as they are.
• You want to limit my rights so you can expand your own and minimize mine.

How can I love you?

• I perceive that what you stand for will destroy my way of life.
• I perceive you as a threat to my ideals, my lifestyle, my beliefs, my livelihood, my dignity.

How can I love you?

… when you don’t love me?

Did Jesus Christ, the Son of God, take any of these factors into consideration when he asked us to love one another as we love ourselves? Did he have any idea just how difficult it would become to love our enemies?

• Was Jesus ever confronted with violence?
• Was he ever treated unjustly?
• Did he ever encounter discrimination?
• Was Jesus ever in the position of being subjugated?
• Did Jesus ever love without being loved in return?

How did Jesus love his enemies? How did he overcome the impossible feat of loving others who seemed intent on being selfish, misguided or causing harm?

Jesus taught us to love in a way that looks past the sins into the hearts of the sinners. He treated his enemies with patience and kindness. His humility softened the hearts of the proud. He spoke the truth with gentleness and opened the eyes of the destitute so they could see hope. Jesus’ love was consistent. “Greater love has no one than this: than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Christ did not die on the cross for the apostles or his followers alone; he died for everyone - including his enemies.

We are called to love to this greater degree of love. To lay down our lives for others does not necessarily mean we physically die, it means we love the person, not the deed. We look into the hearts of our adversaries - if they are intent on doing us harm, if they do not understand us, if they criticize or reject us, if they are unable to see past our differences, we look into their hearts and love them anyway. We take our example from Jesus Christ on the cross and we pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness. We take our example from the saints who looked with love into the hearts of their persecutors, and extend our love, our compassion, and forgiveness in the same way they did. We are not the first Christians in history to be confronted by enemies who wish to spill our blood and annihilate us; we are not the first followers of Christ to stand before misguided accusers; we are not the only Catholics to have ever found ourselves living during a time of oppression because of what we believe. In every age, in every era, there have been adversaries to the faithful believers of the gospel message. This is our age, our era, our time to love others as Christ has taught us. Our faith would not have survived ages past without the indelible mark of our baptism in Jesus Christ our Savior. Christ’s love on the cross is our inheritance. We move the world forward in the face of our enemies through our indestructible love of God and neighbors.