Love your enemies

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This was the old law. It is a bit harsh for us: if you steal something, you loose your hand; if you kill, you are killed. It was good then, to stop successive acts of revenge. Justice was made, the deed repaid; no need to further action. They say that an eye for an eye eventually would leave the whole world blind. But Jesus came to lift the level of charity; he asked us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies. It was a big change. How can we do that? We shouldn’t have enemies, but we all have people that annoy us. What did Jesus do? Even though he was innocent, he died for all of us. There is no offence that we can’t forgive and forget.

This is the true Christian spirit: we are all brothers and sisters. We should love everybody without exception. This is the heart of the Gospel. We need to look at others as Jesus sees them. Have a big heart that includes everyone. Look at the saints, how they treated others; people were attracted to their way of life. When somebody cuts in on us driving on the road, we get upset; if we recognise the person, we smile instead and we wave to him or her. If we know the person jumping the queue, we are more lenient. We need to ask Jesus to help us to change our glasses, or to see things through his eyes.

There was an Abbot in a monastery who was worried about the lack of charity among his brothers. He went to see a holy man to find a solution. The holy man told him: “You have Jesus among your brothers.” He responded that it was impossible. The holy man reassured him. Going back to the monastery he began to think: “The cook? No, he is too fat, always eating. The librarian? He doesn’t stop reading books. The porter? He is always gossiping about the news. The bell ringer? He is never on time to mark the hours. The gardener? He forgets to water the flowers. The tailor? He can hardly get the size right. The organist? He falls asleep on the keyboard.” And he went through all the friars to see who could be Jesus. When he arrived at the monastery, he got together all the brothers and told them about the holy man: “He says that one of you is Jesus. I don’t think so, but I tell you this just in case.” They all began to think about who could Jesus be. Then the whole atmosphere of the monastery changed. They treated each other differently. Saint Paul says that some of the people around us could be angels. Sometimes Jesus appeared to saints in a different human form, a leper to Saint Francis, a poor man to Saint Martin, a little boy to Saint Christopher.

The Italians say that when someone does something against you tie a thread on your finger: not to forget, to have it always in your face. We cannot keep bearing all our grudges throughout our life. It is a dead weight. Eventually they will stop us from living. We need to learn how to forgive, forget and let them go.

We all have things that upset us. It is part of human life. We should bring those things to our prayer, to our conversation with God and deal with them. Otherwise when we get upset all the things inside of us come out and we hurt people. Why do they upset us? How can we change our attitude? A young couple used to get upset using the same toothpaste. Instead of uniting them, it was the opposite. One liked to roll it up and the other just to press it. Eventually they bought two different tubes. The argument was over. Deep down, it is our pride that causes the upset. We need to recognise this and move on.

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