Pray for those who want to destroy you. Pray for those who hurt you. Pray for your enemies and ask God to bless them. It is difficult to do so and perhaps even more difficult to understand, yet Christians are called to this “mystery” according to the glorious example of Jesus Christ: “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors”. Francis began his homily with these words during today’s mass in Santa Marta: it is “really difficult” to do it, he admits, but the example of many witnesses from the last century teaches us that it is not so impossible.
“Let us think of the poor Russian Christians who, by the mere fact of being Christians, were sent to Siberia to die of cold: And they should pray for the executing government that sent them there? How can that be? Yet many did so: they prayed. We think of Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Should they pray for the dictator who sought a ‘pure race’ and killed without scruple, even to pray that God should bless him? And yet many did so”.
They did so following the glorious example of Jesus on the cross praying for those who “killed him”: “Forgive me, Father, they don’t know what they are doing”. Jesus’ logic is a “difficult one”; Saint Stephen also puts it into practice when he asks forgiveness for those who stoned him to death.
“There is an infinite distance between us – we, who frequently refuse to forgive even small things – and what the Lord asks of us, which he has exemplified for us: To forgive those who seek to destroy us. It is often very difficult within families, for example, when spouses need to forgive one another after an argument, or when one needs to forgive their mother-in-law. It’s not easy… Rather, [we are invited] to forgive those who are killing us, who want us out of the way… Not only forgive, but even pray that God may watch over them! Even more, to love them. Only Jesus’ word can explain this. I can’t go any further”.
Rereading it carefully, it is the fifth chapter of today’s Gospel of Matthew itself that admits the human struggle of following the “perfect” model of God and of his “universal” love. The same passage explains that knowing how to “bless our enemies”, to pray for them, to forgive them, is a “grace” to be continually asked.
“We say this every day in the Our Father prayer; we ask forgiveness as we forgive: it is a condition... even if it is not easy”, the Pope emphasizes. It is also a grace “to understand this Christian mystery and be perfect like the Father, who gives good things to the good and the bad.”
Then, Pope Francis concludes, “It would do us well, today, to think of our enemy – I think all of us have one – someone who has hurt us or wants to hurt us. The Mafia’s prayer is: ‘You’ll pay me back.’ The Christian prayer is: ‘Lord, give them your blessing, and teach me to love them.’ Let us think of one enemy, and pray for them. May the Lord to give us the grace to love them.”
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