An Invitation To Read My Story - My Testimony

Love Your Enemies:

Seeing With Jesus' Eyes

In Luke 6:27-38, Our Lord Jesus Christ presents us with perhaps one of the most challenging yet life-changing teachings in all of Scripture: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." These words pierce through our human inclinations toward self-protection and retaliation, calling us to a radical imitation of God's love. Christ doesn't merely suggest this as an ideal; He commands it as the very essence of Christian discipleship. In a world where hatred seems to multiply effortlessly and revenge is often celebrated as justice, Jesus calls us to break the cycle through supernatural love. This love He speaks of is not mere sentiment or feeling, but agape, the deliberate choice to will the good of another, even when they have wounded us deeply. When we love our enemies, we participate in the very love of the Trinity, reflecting the Father's mercy that "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good."

The second movement in today's gospel addresses the epidemic of judgment that plagues our modern world. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged," Jesus declares with divine authority. How often do we witness the harsh reality you describe, where a fragment of someone's story becomes the complete narrative in our minds? In our age of instant communication and surface-level interactions, we have become masters of snap judgments, crafting entire identities for others based on fleeting glimpses or secondhand accounts. This tendency is perhaps most painful within our own families, where familiarity can breed not contempt, but a false sense of complete knowledge. We think we know our relatives so thoroughly that we stop seeing them with fresh eyes, stop allowing for their growth, their struggles, their hidden depths. Yet Jesus reminds us that judgment belongs to God alone, for only He sees the heart in its entirety, the wounds that drive our actions, the fears that shape our words, the love that struggles to emerge despite our brokenness.

The measure we use for others, Scripture tells us, will be the measure used for us. God's judgment should give us pause every time we feel the familiar rise to judge others in our hearts. When we encounter someone whose politics differ from ours, whose lifestyle choices perplex us, whose words have wounded us, we stand at a crossroads. We can choose the path of the world, quick judgment, righteous indignation, the satisfaction of moral superiority, or we can choose the path of Christ, which leads through the narrow gate of mercy. Our Blessed Mother, who pondered all things in her heart, shows us the way of patient reflection rather than hasty judgment. She, who was herself subjected to whispers and assumptions about her pregnancy, chose to trust in God's providence rather than defend herself against human judgment. In her, we find the model of one who extends mercy because she has received it so abundantly.

When we choose to love our enemies and withhold judgment, we participate in Christ's own redemptive work. The enemy becomes revealed as a wounded child of God; the difficult family member surprises us with unexpected depth. In practicing this radical mercy, we discover that love is not weakness but the force that held Christ to the Cross as He prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Through choosing love over judgment, we allow the Holy Spirit to transform not only others but ourselves, becoming instruments of grace in a world desperate for mercy.


© 2025 James Dacey Jr.