I have another bumper sticker story. Those little strips of vinyl can be a powerful way to communicate. This one said, “When Jesus said ‘love your enemies’, he probably meant don’t kill them.” The Gospel reading today gives us this shocking teaching of Our Lord. If it doesn’t shock us, there is something likely wrong with our thinking. The bumper sticker gives us a real challenge from someone likely outside the Church, or on the fringe. It bluntly implies that you Christians do not practice what you preach. We should not dismiss this charge lightly.

I once had a lengthy ongoing debate with a Catholic pacifist. He was firm in his opinion that all violence is evil and can never be justified. No matter what scenario I gave him he would not change his position, even saying that if a criminal broke into a man’s home and was about to hurt his wife and children, he should do nothing to harm the unjust attacker. Is this what Jesus is telling us? No, He is not denying the right, or the responsibility, of legitimate self-defense. He is using strong language, even exaggerated, as He often does, to make an important point that He knows we will have a hard time living out.

Love is the guiding force of all of the Word of God, because God is Love. (1Jn4:8) Even violence against an unjust aggressor should be motivated by love for God and the innocent and defenseless who are threatened. The Vietnamese Cardinal, Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, was in a communist prison camp for 13 years under horrendous conditions. He was so loving toward his guards that they changed them often to keep them from being converted. One guard could not believe that the Cardinal loved him after he had treated him so cruelly. “Why?” he asked. Van Thuan responded simply by quoting the gospel we hear today at Mass, “because Jesus teaches us :’love you enemies…’” The guard responded, “this is very beautiful, but hard to understand.” Amen.

Our best answer to the bumper sticker challenge is to fall on our knees and beg for the grace to imitate the heroic example of the saints, like the good Cardinal, who followed the example of the one who cried out, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” God bless you

–Fr. Peter