Loving the unlovable

WE need to be ready for this difficult duty. Christ

commands us to love our enemies who can be described as the unlovable.

They may not be those who offend us one way or another.

            They can be those who are so completely irresponsible,

lazy, hard-headed and abusive that their only purpose and business in

life seem not only to be totally dependent on us but also to

continuously give problems to us.

            They are like leeches that we cannot seem to get rid of.

But yes, we have to love them just the same. Not only that. We have to

love them more because, and not in spite of those conditions. Let’s

remember that charity knows no bounds.

            We may find no reason at all to love them. In fact, all

our reasoning, our common sense and all other senses would point to

hating them or, at least, to ignoring them. Our patience with them may

already have long run dry. We seem to have done everything for them,

and yet they continue to produce problems.

            Still, in spite of these scenarios, we still are

duty-bound to love them. “Love your enemies,” Christ told us in no

uncertain terms. And he lived it himself, by dying for all of us. No

rational or sentimental basis supported such actuation. It was done

purely in compliance with the Father’s will.

            With his death on the cross, he actually assumed all our

sins, delivering death to our sins with his own death, and rising from

that death to give us a way of rising also from our own death due to

sin.

            And before his death, one of his last words was precisely

to ask for forgiveness for those who crucified him, that in the end

are all of us and not just those directly involved in his crucifixion.

He asked forgiveness for all of us even if we have not yet asked for

forgiveness ourselves. This is truly loving the unlovable.

            That is how he loves us, and how we also ought to love one

another, since he also told us to “love one another as I have loved

you.” (Jn 13,34)

            It’s clear that we can only love the unlovable if we are

truly and vitally identified with Christ, that is, if his spirit truly

animates us. And this is actually possible and doable because Christ

has given us all the means so that he and us can be one, living our

life together.

            Of course, we have to avail first of the spiritual and

supernatural means that Christ has made available in abundance for

this purpose. But we also need to do some drastic adjustments in the

way we view or consider persons and things.

            At times, we have to do battle with our own reason, with

our own common sense, our own feelings, instincts and preferences if

only to allow the grace of God to work on us, enabling us to love the

unlovable.

            We just have to reassure ourselves that by so doing we

actually would be purifying and Christianizing these human

faculties—our reason, will, emotions, instincts, etc. We would become

more human, since to be truly human is to be like Christ, the very

pattern of our humanity and the redeemer of our damaged humanity.