LOVE YOUR ENEMIES - nonviolent revolution

Yesterday's Gospel from Luke 6: 27-38 calls us to love our enemies. What a challenge for us in the US. Fr. Ev in his homily yesterday raised serious questions about the current war in Iraq. It was very satisfying to hear such a word of challenge in church in Ames.

Later yesterday I came across Pope Benedict XVI's Angelus message on the Gospel. It brought a real message of hope. In part it read:

This page of the Gospel is rightly considered the "magna carta" of Christian nonviolence; it does not consist in surrendering to evil -- as claims a false interpretation of "turn the other cheek" (Luke 6:29) -- but in responding to evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21), and thus breaking the chain of injustice. It is thus understood that nonviolence, for Christians, is not mere tactical behavior but a person's way of being, the attitude of one who is convinced of God's love and power, who is not afraid to confront evil with the weapons of love and truth alone. Loving the enemy is the nucleus of the "Christian revolution," a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power. The revolution of love, a love that does not base itself definitively in human resources, but in the gift of God, that is obtained only and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Herein lies the novelty of the Gospel, which changes the world without making noise. Herein lies the heroism of the "little ones," who believe in the love of God and spread it even at the cost of life.

What a sign that God is alive, somehow working through structures of the Church to remind us of the Gospel of peace, of the nonviolent love of Christ Jesus.

What a gift for Lent!