On Palm Sunday 2017, two bombs exploded in northern Egypt: one inside the church of Saint George in Tanta, and the other outside the Church of Saint Mark in Alexandria, the mother church of Egyptian Christians. Forty-seven people died during the celebration of Mass, over 100 were injured.
Several weeks later, on Easter Sunday, a priest in Egypt delivered a homily which I read a few days later. I was stunned by the message, especially since just a few years prior a seminary friend of mine had been kidnapped by Islamist rebels in Syria, and was never found after negotiations for his return broke down.
It is difficult to love those who persecute you, it is difficult to love your enemies.
The priest, Father George, addressed those Islamists those who organized the attack:
“A Message to those who Kill us. What will we say to them? THANK YOU
You know why we thank you? I’ll tell you. You won’t get it, but please believe us.
You gave us an opportunity to die the same death as Christ–and this is the biggest honor we could have. We thank you because you shortened for us the journey. We thank you because you gave to us to fulfill what Christ said to us: “Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.” We were lambs; our only weapons: our faith and the church we pray in.
The second part of the message we want to send to you is that we love you. And this, unfortunately, you won’t understand at all. Maybe you won’t believe us when we say we’re grateful.
See what Christ said: If you love those who love you, you have no profit or reward with me. Even thugs and thieves love those who love them. Any gang loves its members. Even the drug dealers all like each other and take care of each other. Right? But I want to tell you that “if you love those who love you, what reward have you… But I say to you, love your enemies.” [end quote]
Jesus had every reason to condemn and blast those who hurt him, and killed him, but he did not. Rather he prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
The love and mercy that God has shown us, and continues to show us is incomprehensible to us. We seek revenge, we want an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, yet Jesus asks us to show the same love and mercy to others.
Does God ask for the impossible from us? How can I love someone who has hurt me so deeply? Someone who has killed those I love?
“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy,” we heard in the first reading. This is impossible! How can I become as holy as God? This is impossible on our own, but only possible with God. God is the one who gives us the grace and strength to be more like Him.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us,” we heard in the Psalm. This seems impossible – how far is the east from the west?
I have always been captivated by this analogy of God’s mercy. If two people start walking away from each other, the distance from the initial point becomes greater and greater with every step. And it keeps growing. That is how much God forgives us. The forgiveness keeps growing and growing, expanding every second. When we forgiven, imagine our sins are cast into outer space, and they keep going without stopping, never again to be seen.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” During every Our Father, we ask God to be merciful to us, in the same way that we are merciful to others.
Do we forgive others in the same way that the east and west are distant from each other? Would we have the strength to do so?
We carry so much baggage through life. Resentments, grudges, envy. Why not let go of them?
Those who have hurt us seem to continue to hurt us, reopening the wounds they cause in us years or decades ago. Let God take care of those who have hurt us, we do not have to keep feeling the weight of things that happened long ago.
How was Father George in Egypt able to thank and pray for those who killed fellow Christians? It requires the impossible, which is made possible by God’s grace.
May God open our hearts, that we may forgive those who have hurt us, so that we can love as God loves – so that we can become perfect as God the Father is perfect.
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