NOTES for Mat 5:43-48
When the Lord speaks of loving one’s enemies, He knows how difficult this is for a human being. Perhaps this is precisely why Jesus leaves us such a commandment. We often see enemies in people who are nothing of the kind. What would happen in that case if the Lord had not left us this commandment? Believing ourselves fully entitled to hate our enemies, we would hate people who wish us no harm at all... Yet the commandment to love our neighbor and our enemy was naturally given to us not only to prevent such situations. Despite everything, peace on earth is possible only through the pacification of the heart of every person who lives upon it. If malice and hatred dwell in the heart, even if they are “justified,” there is no peace in that heart... And only love, which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7), can forgive everything, including, regrettably, the inevitable infliction of pain.