THIS is about charity, the very essence of God. And as God’s image and likeness, we are supposed to also have this essence. It’s a charity that is not simply human and natural, but rather divine and supernatural. As such, it requires the very grace of God for us to have it.
But we
have to understand that this charity that does not go against our human nature.
It simply goes beyond it, purifying and elevating our human love to make it
also divine.
This
truth of our Christian faith is illustrated in that gospel episode where Christ
spelled out how we have to love. “You have heard that it has been said, An eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” he said. “But I say to you not to resist
evil: but if one strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him also the other;
and if a man will contend with you in judgment, and take away your coat, let go
your cloak also to him.” (Mt 5,38-40)
More
than that, Christ also said, “And whosoever will force you one mile, go with
him other two. Give to him that asks of you and from him who would borrow from
you, turn not away.” (41-42)
It’s
indeed a mind-blowing description of how our charity should be. We are asked
not to retaliate from unregulated revenge while defending justice. We are
directed toward patient endurance.
We are
asked to train our heart to respond with mercy and self-giving, refusing to
escalate when struck, giving more rather than grabbing back, being willing to
endure inconvenience.
This is
not, of course, about self-destruction for its own sake, but rather about
self-restraint and mercy even while suffering injustice. That way, our response
to injustice would not become another act of harm and would thereby end the
cycle of counter-attacks.
We have
to learn to overcome evil with good, a very intriguing part of Christian
charity. Not only should we love our enemies, as Christ taught us, but we also
need to drown evil with an abundance of good.
We have
to try our best to erase whatever disbelief, doubt or skepticism we can have as
we consider this teaching, since most likely, our first and spontaneous
reaction to it would precisely be those conditions. We can ask, even if done
only interiorly, “Is Christ really serious about this? Can this thing that
Christ is telling us, possible, doable?”
When
these reactions come to us, it is time to remind ourselves that we just have to
follow our faith that definitely contains a lot of mysteries and things
supernatural that we are not expected to understand fully. Like Our Lady and
all the saints, we should just believe and do what we are told because it is
Christ who said so, and because it is the Church that teaches us so.
That’s
what faith is all about. By believing first, then we can start to understand
things that are hard to explain or articulate in human terms. As they say,
that’s how the ball bounces. We should not waste time trying to understand
everything at once or at the beginning. Let’s be game enough to go through some
kind of adventure that, no matter how the outcome would be, we know that God is
in control of everything.
We
should just beg for God’s grace.
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