LOVE ENDURES ALL THINGS

Pope Francis uses as the cornerstone of this Love Endures All Things section of Amoris Laetitia a long but worthy of our attention quotation from a sermon of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The person who hates you most  has some  good in him; even the  nation that  hates you most  has some  good in it; even the  race  that  hates you most  has some  good  in  it.  And when  you come to  the  point  that  you  look  in  the  face  of  every man and see  deep down within him what  religion calls ‘the  image  of  God,’ you begin to love him in spite  of.  No matter what he does, you see God’s image there.  There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off…  Another way  that  you love  your enemy is this: when the  opportunity  presents itself  for you to defeat  your enemy, that  is the  time  which you must  not do it… When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems.  Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system….  Hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.  If  I hit  you and you hit  me and I hit  you back and you hit  me  back and so on,  you  see,  that  goes  on  ad  infinitum.  It just never ends.  Somewhere  somebody  must  have a  little  sense,  and  that’s  the  strong  person.  The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil…  Somebody must  have  religion enough and morality  enough to cut  it  off  and inject  within the  very  structure of  the  universe  that  strong and powerful element  of  love.”114

114 Martin Luther King Jr.,  Sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama,  November 17, 1957.