‘You have learnt how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.

“Happy Valentine’s Day” were the most said words on last Tuesday, 14 February.  A day when couples put their admiration on full display: hand in hand, arm holding a bouquet of red roses, and dining together.  These are some of the well-known ways lovers express their affection for each other.  For those who are still single and searching, it can be a time of mixed feelings, one of adventure, excitement and worry.  Love requires us to be vulnerable, to being hurt from not being received or respected.  Far from being straightforward, we endeavour nevertheless to search for it one way or another.

Not everyone is looking for romantic love, some desire it from family, particularly when it is lacking or absent – from a parent to their child, a child to their parents, between siblings and family members.  Then there are those who long for friendship and community life.  A year ago, a friend of mine shared with me some interesting statistics on the number of occupants in households, one in five people live on their own.  People unbeknownst to us desire company or some form of connection to people and community life.  Whoever we are, we all wish to be loved and know that we are loved.  We’re conditioned and created for this purpose.  The joys of community life are many but it has its challenges.  It is where we find differences and perhaps the source of our frustrations.  The Christian life is not about closing ourselves completely from the world but to engage with it.

Few people would claim to have enemies.  Perhaps they are those closest to us in our home or workplace or where we volunteer.  An enemy might be someone who gets on our nerves or they inflict some kind of injury on us.  In response we don’t treat them as we should.  We may express this through passive behaviour like ignoring or excluding them, talking behind their back.  We are called to rise above this kind of behaviour and attitude towards a higher standard, the one God is calling us to.  Last week Jesus taught us what causes the outward actions of violence, adultery and dishonesty, by going inwards to the heart where things like anger, lust, lack of trust are harboured and grow.  Hatred can  simmer underneath, grow and boil over.  We are created to live in relation to others.  The teachings of Jesus are about how we might relate to one another in a way fitting to being called children of God, a reflection of God in the world. 

Continuing his discourse of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us about love for those hard to love, one that is different to how we see love of the romantic and familial kinds.  The ancient Greek language has several words and meanings for the word Eros, which is about intimacy and passion; philia, a strong bond between friends; storge, between family members and agape, a love motivated by charity and sacrifice.  Agape is the kind of love Jesus is calling us to.  It goes above feelings and emotions and the desire to do good for the other no matter who they are or what they have done to us.  By loving and praying for those who hurt us, we can liberate the offender and ourselves from the endless circle of hate, to become free.  This is what Jesus came for, to restore our freedom through love.

By Fr Hoang Dinh