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Do you have enemies? I thought for some time and fortunately, I think I don't! So when I hear Jesus
say, “Love your enemies”, I am tempted to exempt myself from this commandment.
But can I? Jesus has set the extreme situation for us. If He has asked us to
love even our enemies, who else then in our lives are we exempted from loving
truly? Those non-enemies who I still find annoying and disappointing, … those,
who by their action or non-action make me feel the underlying wound of unlove.
I don’t need to fight these people in battle but they cause me unpleasant
feelings within that I need to struggle with. How do I forget myself and love
anyway? How do we bear witness to Christ in all situations to all people so
that “…all will know that (we) are (His) disciples” Jn 13:35 and thus, evangelize? Tall order for me! How about you?
During one of my retreats, I found myself one day struggling a great
deal with my anger towards a particular person who I found very self-centered,
unreliable and therefore, someone I could not trust. Living with such a person
was life-depleting and bearing the feelings she triggered in me was tiring.
Yet, I was called to love her. I spent a long time complaining to Jesus about
her, telling Him how ridiculously impossible it was to love her. After all, she
was not going to change. My unspoken condition for loving her was that she
needed to change and be better.
But Jesus made it very clear for us to understand in Lk 6:32,
“If you
love those who love you, what credit can you expect? Even sinners love those
who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit can
you expect? For even sinners do that much.”
Throughout my complaining to Jesus, reasoning out with Him, even to
the point of talking a walk to the beach to ease the tension within, He
remained silent. I asked, “Why are You so quiet after I have said so much? Can You say
something to help me out of this anger?” I was staring out at sea on the tiny
island of Cheung Chau, frustrated at my frustration, and He replied, “Love
needs no justification.” Immediately, I shut up. Because I understood. Jesus needs
no reason to love us. He loves because He chooses to. That’s it. I'm called to do likewise.
When I cooled down after that, I learned that I cannot love a
difficult person without first forgiving her for her wrongs. And the way to
forgiveness is to place my own wrongs before me. How have I also been
self-centered, unreliable, untrustworthy? When I examined this person’s flaws
in my own self, I realized I had failed too in the same way. And just as God
loves me in my sinfulness, no one needs to be perfect for me to love them.
Our sins pit us as God’s enemies. Yet, instead of justifiably
striking us down, Jesus on the cross even went so far as to give us His mother,
who, did not hold it against us for the cruel death of her Son but embraced
humanity as her children. Can we ever justify our failure to love anyone, however
painful and difficult that may be?
Love needs no justification.
Forgive by first placing my own sins before me.
We are soon
approaching Holy Week and in preparation for this, the Church is invited this
week especially to penitence. Let us take time to examine our conscience more
thoroughly, and enter more deeply into the awareness of how we have hurt Jesus
and our relationship with Him. How He has continued to love us despite our failure to return His love. Our depth of sorrow transforms into the depth of
joy and refreshment experienced when the priest gives the absolution and we
know that our relationship with Jesus has been reset once again.
"So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Lk 7:47
By ourselves experiencing the
compassionate mercy of God, we can then be compassionate and merciful towards
others, so that all will know that we are Christ’s disciples.
Allocutio for Our Lady of Victories Presidium - 4 April 2017
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