“Jesus said to his disciples:
‘To you who hear I say,
love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic.’” Luke 6:27-29

The Bible footnote on this section of Luke’s Gospel refers you to Matthew: 5:43-44, which parallels this Lucan passage. It reads, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, . .” The footnote goes on to explain why you should feel nothing but love for the person whom others might consider to be “your enemy”. Matthew 5:45 reads:
“that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”

I think that the key to the “puzzle” is that one who is a child of God, that is, one who has nurtured and cultivated the seed of God’s love placed in each of us at the beginning of our existence, has so much love for the person that he cannot but love the one others think of as his enemy. The person who has discovered that she and everyone else is a child of God can only look upon another with so much love that the pain of an insult to self hurts less than their empathy for the one inflicting the hurt.

Is it that you have to go against your grain and force yourself to love in spite of your own pain or is it that you love the other so much that it is natural for you to find only love for the other in your heart?

Sister Loretta