Love Your Enemy

How do you do that?

Love your enemy. Really?

It’s even nearly impossible not to imagine grabbing the hair of those teens who just couldn't queue properly on the way to the train station upstairs.

For such a small matter, I hate them instantly. I don’t even know them.

‘Love your enemy’ is one of many teachings of Jesus that I still don’t understand. Because I haven’t found any ways to put it into practice. How can I? Surely, it doesn’t make any sense. I tried imagining it several times. Tried to remember my past conflicts with others, looking for some situation that might suit the context. Was I ever, in my experience, mad/ angry to someone but love him/ her at the same time? Did I ever dislike someone but like him/ her at the same time?

The first question is easier to answer. Yes, I can be mad at my daughter, but it doesn’t mean I hate her. I’m mad for a reason at a given time, for some mistakes she made that were unpleasant for me. But I never hate her for that. But of course this can’t be considered loving my enemy. No sane mothers hate their children. 

So, who’s my enemy? 

Someone who hurt me, either physically or mentally... Someone who trespassed against me. Someone who hates me…

Well… it’s not hard to come up with a list of names who have hurt my feelings. Some of them are still in my life. But most of them are not. For some of those who are still in my life, I may have forgiven them. But I’m not sure if I love them. Most probably I only cope with them because I still need them. Somehow I managed to forget their wrongdoings, and not think about them. They don’t occupy my heart or my mind. And I don’t believe that’s love…

See? I couldn’t find it. 

It’s just not human… If you think of it as a mere human being…

It takes more than just humanity. It takes a divinity.

The same divinity that enables the late Pope John Paul to forgive and pray for the man who tried to assassinate him.

A song title came to my mind. The Power of Love by Celine Dion.

“...Whenever you reach for me

I'm gonna do all that I can

We're heading for something

Somewhere I've never been

Sometimes I am frightened but I'm ready to learn

of the power of love..”

Well, isn’t that something? 

If God asks me to love my enemy, and I answer, guess He’ll grant me that crucial power of love. So maybe, all we need to do, if we sincerely want to love others who have hurt us, simply ask the Lord to give us the capacity. 

Like I said, it’s not human. 

It’s divine. It doesn’t come from this world.

Breaking the Lies

Oh how I feel more and more separated from this world…

And the more I am isolated, the more I realize by the grace of God, how wrong things are.

All the popular concepts about personal wellbeing are total garbage.. 

Me time. Love yourself. Follow your heart. Find your happiness. 

They are nothing but dirt and toxins for the soul and spirit.

It’s not about ‘me time’. It’s time spent with God, when we read the Holy Scriptures, when we pray, and ultimately when we celebrate the eucharist that matters. The time spent with Him is our ultimate source of strength in our daily battles. 

The gospel of Matthew said ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… and… Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ There is no ‘love yourself’ anywhere in the gospel.

Self love is the pioneer of selfishness and pride. Remember, it was pride that turned an angel into a demon. 

Follow Jesus instead of our heart ‘For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander’ (Matt 15:19).

And following Jesus means only these two things: denial of ourselves and carrying our crosses. Cross is the symbol of suffering. Our lives on earth can not be separated from daily toils which we need to embrace. So, it’s not about pursuing our happiness, my friend. Our happiness may cause sadness for others. We can be happy for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong ways.

Those concepts may seem harmless and good. Just like the enemy wants it to be…

The father of all lies knows the humans’ weaknesses all too well. His only mission is to distance us from God. He can’t stand the idea of mankind going to Heaven to meet God. Clearly it’s the privilege he doesn’t have. 

Mary and the Empty Tomb

Easter Sunday was 2 days behind. So this week is called Easter Octave…

Today’s bible reading is about Jesus’ empty tomb, found by Mary Magdalene. I found something interesting in one of the passages, the one which told us that Mary, in her deep grief from the Lord’s death, came to His tomb which was already empty. Apostle John wrote: So Mary Magdalene stood by the tomb and wept. She wept, realizing that she had lost Jesus. Even it was just His lifeless body, she felt a great loss, again… Mary must have been so attached to Jesus, she didn’t want to be separated from Him, even from His corpse…

She immediately became convinced that Jesus’ body had been snatched away and hidden somewhere else. Even after the resurrected Jesus greeted her and asked her who was it that she was looking for, she was unable to recognize Him due to her emotional condition. She kept repeating her conviction that the Lord’s body had been taken away and now she was left clueless about its whereabouts.  

At that point, Jesus who understood Mary’s heart finally decided to open her eyes by calling her, by her name. 

Maybe... a few years before that day in front of the empty tomb, Jesus had reached out to Mary one day. The lost Mary. The doomed Mary, ready to be another soul dragged to hell by the enemies. But Jesus, the good shepherd had descended from Heaven looking for His lost lambs, and He recognize one when He encountered one… He then called her Mary of Magdala. He had called her by her name and claimed her as His, leaving the enemy with a bitter defeat right in the face.

“Mary,” called Jesus. And Mary was taken to that exact moment of her salvation. So it went, she became one of the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection from death.

It’s funny how we are so much like Mary Magdalene. So busy with our own turmoil. We say we believe in Christ, in His great love and salvation. But our earthly body just can’t resist to react towards the earthly situations. When things go wrong (which is always and certainly), we as humans have to deal with our emotions. With our feelings. And with our thoughts. For a moment, we forget His voice. We maybe praying and calling out to Him for help. But our emotions and thoughts are like thick fog barricading us from recognizing His voice. We hold on tight to what we think is really happening, to what we think is true... Our focus is at the storm...

But the good news is: Jesus won’t just stand there and watch us being drifted away by our weaknesses.  

At the right moment, He will call us by our names like He had called Mary in front of His empty tomb… thus we will once again be His witness, spreading the word…

Have a blessed Easter Octave.

God has risen. Alleluia.