Christ's commandment to love our enemies, offenders, and persecutors is perhaps one of the commandments hardest for us to fulfill. Of course, one can say, "I love everyone, I forgive everyone, and I have no enemies," but few can say it sincerely. After all, anyone can be a person's enemy, even those closest to him; in fact, it is precisely among close people that the greatest tensions arise first of all - they wound most painfully, and from them one has to endure the hardest persecutions. Perhaps that is why the Lord said elsewhere, "A man's enemies will be those of his own household" (Mt 10:36).

And yet He calls us to love our enemies - both near and far. And we try to pray for and bless not those we like, not those who make us feel good, but those whom it is hardest to love - those who cause us pain. Someone may call this approach masochistic, but it is not: it is precisely what Christianity can set against masochism - the humility and meekness commanded to us not because life is easier that way, but because they are an inseparable characteristic of our Lord Himself. We are not obliged to follow His way of acting, but if we want to understand what true love and true happiness are, then we will have to learn to forgive our enemies.

'For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?' There is one remarkable saint - Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It is sometimes not easy for us to enter into the prayer experience of the saints, since we are completely different. But she has words that immediately penetrate the heart. And although they are addressed to another person, which means she surely addressed them to herself as well, one still wants to call them a prayer, for such things can be said only in the presence of God. So let us call this a prayer.

And when you think about it, it feels as if it arose as a response to today's reading. Here is what she once wrote: 'People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do something good, you will be accused of selfishness and ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you succeed, you will gain false friends and true enemies. Work anyway. The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and openness will make you vulnerable. Even so, be honest and open. What you spent many years building may be destroyed in one minute. Build anyway. Your help is truly needed, but when you help people, they may attack you for it. Help anyway. You will give the world everything, and you will get your teeth knocked out. Even so, give the world everything.'

Christ's words about love for enemies provoke perhaps more debate and more attempts at interpretation than anything else. Some reject them, defending their right to revenge and hatred of the enemy, while others, on the contrary, respond with the ideology of pacifism and nonresistance. But it seems that in both cases the driving force is the desire to secure oneself, to establish one's own invulnerability before the enemy - either by force or by indifference. The Gospel offers precisely a behavior built not on the pursuit of one's own safety, not on withdrawal into oneself, but on an active response to the offender: "bless, do good, pray..." And the point, it seems, is not pacifism and not the ability to endure pain and bear insults, but a far more difficult art - the ability to love.