1. Lectio
Gospel: Matthew 5:43-48
“But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
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.”
2. Meditatio
During an age of trial and persecution, when the Roman Empire sought absolute dominion, the faithful found perfection, consolation, and hope in a growing trust in the all-powerful God. They sang with confidence:
«”Great and wonderful are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways!” (Rev 15:3).»
Today, which is my last full day in Scotland, providentially coincides with the Feast of All Saints of Scotland. It is a celebration not merely of famous names, but of a multitude of holy men and women who transformed this land through lives of ordinary fidelity. While there are glorious exceptions, most Scottish saints were not martyrs. They were missionaries, monks, queens, and pastors who spent long years spreading Christianity and establishing the Church in relative peace. In that respect, they resemble the countless Christians of my own country, who have been spared persecution and have instead been given the quieter burden of perseverance.
Yet perhaps peace presents dangers of its own.
My spiritual director recently sent me an article describing the manner in which some Christians in the United States engage their enemies. It reflected upon a vulgar smear directed against Michelle Obama and argued that such cruelty was not merely an isolated joke but a symptom. A symptom of a culture becoming increasingly comfortable with dehumanization; a symptom of politics rewarding cruelty; a symptom of Christians confusing partisan allegiance with fidelity to Christ.
Whether or not one agrees with every conclusion, I cannot easily dismiss the uncomfortable truth at the center of the argument. Our Lord commanded me to love my enemies. He never instructed me to mock them. He never told me to slander them. He never suggested that humiliating those made in the image of God was somehow a form of evangelization.
Indeed, every time Christians defend what Christ condemned, the world sees the contradiction. Whenever the Church appears to prefer political victory over Christlike character, her witness grows weaker rather than stronger.
The question that troubles me is not whether Christians are being persecuted. The question that troubles me is whether Christians sometimes become persecutors.
This thought became all the more paradoxical when I reflected upon the establishment of a Religious Liberty Commission. Such efforts rightly seek to preserve the freedom of believers and protect the exercise of religion in public life. These are noble concerns. Yet I must beware lest I seek protection from the very treatment that I myself am unwilling to cease inflicting upon others.
For the Gospel does not simply command me to resist persecution; it commands me to love those who persecute me.
The Second Vatican Council wisely affirmed the distinction between the Church and the political community. The Church does not seek to replace the State, nor does she aspire to earthly dominion. Rather, she walks beside humanity as the Good Samaritan walked beside the wounded man. She enters history not as Caesar but as a servant.
Her intervention springs not from a desire to govern, but from evangelical charity. She draws near to wounds wherever they appear, yet she respects the proper responsibilities of civil institutions. What arises from urgent necessity cannot become the permanent norm.
And so, as I spend this final day among the glens and lochs of Scotland, surrounded by the memory of saints who lived and died in hope, I find myself asking not merely whether I am persecuted, but whether I truly love those whom I regard as enemies.
For perhaps the greatest miracle of Christianity is not that God delivers His friends from their persecutors.
It is that God loved His persecutors and made them His friends.
3. Oratio (Prayer)
Lord Jesus,
You command me not merely to endure those who persecute me, but to love them and pray for them. I confess that I find this command harder than martyrdom itself. For martyrdom is often a single glorious act, while loving one’s enemies is a thousand small deaths of pride.
As I prepare to leave Scotland on this Feast of All Saints of Scotland, I thank You for the multitude of holy men and women who quietly served Your Kingdom without ever shedding their blood. They remind me that sanctity consists not only in dying for Christ, but in living with Christ day after ordinary day.
Forgive me, Lord, for the times I have secretly desired not justice but revenge; not truth but victory; not conversion but vindication.
Teach me to distinguish between defending the dignity of the human person and defending my own wounded ego.
Grant that I may never confuse the privileges of Christianity with the demands of Christianity.
May I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
May I oppose cruelty without becoming cruel.
May I resist falsehood without ceasing to love those who have embraced it.
May I seek religious liberty not merely so that I may be protected from my enemies, but so that I may be free to love them.
Like the Father, who causes His sun to rise on the bad and the good, grant me a heart broad enough to rejoice in blessings given even to those with whom I disagree.
And when I myself become the enemy in another person’s story, grant that they may pray for me.
For I ask all this through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose greatest triumph came not in destroying His enemies but in forgiving them.
Amen.
—
4. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
Chesterton would surely have delighted in the absurdity of today’s Gospel. The world has produced many strange commandments, but surely none stranger than this: “Love your enemies.”
Civilizations are built upon alliances. Tribes are formed by common enemies. Politics itself often depends upon the manufacture of villains. Yet Christ arrives and proposes what must have sounded like divine nonsense:
“Pray for those who persecute you.”
What a scandal!
For if I love my enemies, I deprive myself of the pleasure of hating them. And there are few pleasures more intoxicating than righteous indignation.
The Roman Empire persecuted Christians because Caesar desired absolute dominion. Yet the early Christians confounded the Empire not by seizing power but by refusing to hate.
Curiously enough, most of the saints of Scotland whom I celebrate today were not martyrs. They evangelized, governed, taught, prayed, and built monasteries in relative peace. Their sanctity consisted not in dramatic deaths but in ordinary fidelity.
That thought comforts me.
For I have never faced lions in an arena. I have lived in a nation where Christianity has enjoyed remarkable freedom. And perhaps the greater danger for me is not persecution but comfort.
It is easier to love an enemy who throws stones than one who posts insults.
It is easier to forgive a tyrant than a political opponent.
It is easier to condemn cruelty in others than to recognize the subtle ways in which I delight when my enemies are humiliated.
The modern world is filled with commissions to protect rights and institutions to secure liberties. Such things are good and necessary. Yet Chesterton would remind me that a society may possess perfect mechanisms for protecting itself and still lack charity.
For Christianity was never merely the demand that my enemies stop persecuting me.
It was the astonishing demand that I stop persecuting my enemies.
The Church enters the public square not as Caesar but as the Good Samaritan. She does not seek to replace the State, but to bind wounds wherever she finds them.
And perhaps that is why Our Lord compares His Father to the weather.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust.
The sun rises upon saints and scoundrels alike.
God refuses to join my political tribe.
He stubbornly insists on remaining God.
And perhaps heaven itself is nothing less than the place where former enemies finally discover that they have become brothers.
Until then, I must continue praying for those who persecute me.
And, what is much harder, praying for those whom I am tempted to persecute.
For in the end, I am not saved because I have chosen my friends wisely.
I am saved because God loved His enemies.
And one of them was me.