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Luke 6:33 "And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same."

 

This is one of the hardest parts of Christianity, I think, loving and doing good to our enemies, and figuring out how to do that when our enemies think of us as their enemies, too. As I have said before, I used to think I did not have any real enemies. There were people with whom I disagreed, sometimes in very significant ways, but I still did not think of them as my enemies. But having seen how the thinking of those with whom I disagree on important matters can be used by our true enemy to bring great evil and harm into the world, including to me, I realized this is what an "enemy" looks like. My enemies are not diabolical, mustachioed, hand-rubbing, cackling cartoon villains, they are people, people with good and bad in them. They are often people I love who have allowed themselves to be led so far astray that they are willing to sacrifice me and the good of others to their "idols" of fear, politics, safety, lies, and the like (even though they don't usually realize that's what they're doing). While I continue to love these people, I have to resist their harmful thinking, and the two are so entwined in their minds, their way of thinking having become their "identity" in large part, that the best way for me to love them is to find ways to do good for them even as they reject me.

 

So this brings me back to Jesus' requirement that we do good for our enemies. When my "enemies" are avoiding or rejecting me, how do I do good for them? The same way I do the most good for my friends, through prayer and sacrifice. I lift them up to God, I ask Mary and St. Joseph to be with them, loving and guiding them, and I offer up my sufferings for their sakes. At the same time, I remain open to opportunities to do more tangible good for them, if they will accept it from me. The good they cannot reject, though, is the better good. 

 

The answer, then, to how to do good for our enemies is to pray and sacrifice for them. If we think of them as influenced by demons (and I think that they are), we can remember Jesus' explanation to his apostles that some "cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting" (Mark 9:29). Those are the best things we can do for our enemies.