OUR NATURE IS TO LOVE

OUR NATURE IS TO LOVE Fr Luke A Veronis "Do to others as you would have them do to you. Don't love only those who love you, but love all people. Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Be merciful as your Father is merciful." Luke 6:31-35 Here are some of the most radical teachings of Jesus Christ, teachings that separate His followers from the ways of the world. The true mark of a disciple of Christ is how we love all people, even our enemies. To love, not because we receive something in return, but to love simply because it is our nature to love. Our love is freely given because God has first freely loved us. We strive to imitate our heavenly Father in his love and mercy to all people! But what does loving our enemy mean. Can we love our enemies in the same way we love our families and friends? Here, it is important to understand the Greek word for love, “agape,” used in the Bible. Agape love means something more than just liking another person. “Agape love describes an active feeling of benevolence towards another person; it means that no matter what a person does to us we will never allow ourselves to desire anything but his highest good; and we will deliberately go out of our way to be good and kind to him.” (William Barclay) In other words, such love goes beyond our feelings, but comes from our will. We may not want to do it, but we must “will” to love another. This may sound impossible. How can we love our enemies? How can we forgive those who have hurt us? Only God can forgive, love, and be merciful in such a manner. How can we be like God? Here, we must admit our limitations and unite ourselves totally in Christ. As we become one with the Lord will we adopt His mind and spirit. It is from the ocean of God's love that the tiny drops of our own ability to love come. We receive the ability to love only through the grace that comes from Christ which we allow to dwell in us! Of course most people find it difficult to love an enemy, or impossible to forgive one who has deeply hurt us. Yet, God never ceases to do good to the sinner; never ceases to stop hoping for the change of the most hardened sinner; always keeps His arms open wide to embrace whoever comes to Him. God does not want the death of a sinner (even though we might want this). God is not the enemy of our enemies. He is not even the enemy of His enemies. Saint Paul reminds us that "while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8), for all people. This is the divine love he wants to instill in us. The only way to conquer our enemies is through His love. If you try to hate your enemies, mistreat them, abuse them, offer them the kind of treatment they offer you, you will only intensify their enmity. However, if you love them, bless them, treat them well, the power of God may touch them and transform them into new people, even into friends.            During the communist period in Romania, there was a priest monk who suffered in prison because of his faith. In prison, he was tortured and beaten so badly that he lay close to death. It so happened that his torturer, the man who had beaten him almost to death, had himself found disfavor with his superiors and was himself beaten very badly and thrown into prison. The witness of this story relates how he was sitting in this prison cell with the half-dead priest on his right side, and the half-dead torturer on his left. As the hours went by and the torturer came closer to death, this man kept crying out from his physical pain, but also loudly lamenting over all the evil which he had committed in his life. He said that no one could forgive him for the terrible things he had done.  Then the priest, who was listening, called over several young men to lift him up, because he was too weak to even walk. They carried him over to the man. He sat beside his own torturer, hugged him, caressed his deformed face, and started to tell him about the love and mercy of God. He told the man that He forgave him, even though he had done such evil. He assured him that all the Christians this man tortured had forgiven him and even now loved him. And then he said, “Imagine, if we love you and forgive you, how much more does God love you and long to hug you and comfort you.”  The torturer was so moved by the actions and words of the priest, that he began shaking and started to confess his sins to this priest. Imagine, a murdered man listening to the confession of his own murderer, who is telling him of the great love and mercy of God. This is a divine love which only comes from God. And this is the love that all of us are called to imitate. The original nature of humanity, before the fall, was to love unconditionally. Our nature now, as people united to Christ through our baptism, is once again to love with divine love. We should never change our nature even though another has changed theirs. It doesn’t matter how others treat us; we simply love them because we know we are loved by God. Always remember that even in the worst of people, the image of God still abides. What is important is to see how the image of God in me can relate to the image of God in the other! If we strive to imitate Christ in our lives, to truly become one with him, then we will be able to find the power and strength to follow these difficult commandments of Christ. "Do to others as you would have them do to you. Don't love only those who love you, but love all people. Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Be merciful as your Father is merciful."