Gospel in Art: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you

The Four Virtues being Chased, by Theodoor Galle 1600 © Alamy

Source: Christian Art

Gospel of 20 June 2023
Matthew 5:43-48

Jesus said to his disciples: 'You have learnt how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? Even the tax collectors do as much, do they not? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do as much, do they not? You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

Reflection on the engraving

The demands of the Gospels can be very challenging. Today's Gospel reading is probably one of the most challenging passages in Scripture. Jesus calls on his disciples not only to love our neighbour, which is a call or command to be found in the Old Testament. He also calls on them, on us, to love our enemy, which goes beyond anything to be found in the Old Testament.

The temptation is that we feel that this passage does not apply to us, as many of us might be hard pushed to think of someone who could be described as our enemy. We might struggle to get on with certain people, but to identify them as 'an enemy' is a step further. Yet, we may be able to think of people who have hurt us or who upset us in some way. We are not likely to have warm feelings towards such people. When Jesus calls on his disciples to love their enemy, he is not talking about warm feelings or feelings of any kind. Jesus takes us from the realm of feelings to the realm of the will. Jesus, like in so many other passages of the New Testament, is talking about the will rather than about feelings. By saying to 'Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you...' Jesus suggests that to pray for those people is to do something that has a divine quality to it. He taps deep into our inner life and tells us that we can do these divine, amazing things too such as praying for our enemies. It is a call to go beyond our feelings and realise that we all have the capacity to do the most wonderful things.

Our Flemish print by Theodore Galle depicts the personified virtues of Charity (Caritas), Eendracht (Concordia), Peace (Pax) and Timor Dei (Fear of the Lord) being chased and thrown out by the personifications of 'ME' (Meum) and 'YOU' (Tuum). The 'me' and 'you' have whips in their hand. The print has three captions (two in Latin and one in Dutch) and is part of an eight-language series about the abuses against the faith. It is a fun, yet very serious depiction of how 'you' and 'I' struggle daily with living virtuous lives and how we behave like enemies towards the personified virtues. If we were to live truly virtuous lives, then we would be a whole step closer to Jesus's last instruction on our Gospel today: 'You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect'.

LINKS

Gospel in Art: https://christian.art/
Today's reflection: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/matthew-5-43-48-2023-2/