Some one having complained to Blessed Francis of the difficulty he found
in obeying the christian precept commanding us to love our enemies, he
replied: "As for me, I know not how my heart is made, or how it happens
that God seems to have been pleased to give me lately altogether a new
one. Certain it is that I not only find no difficulty in practising this
precept; but I take such pleasure in doing it, and experience so peculiar
and delightful a sweetness in it, that if God had forbidden me to love my
enemies I should have had great difficulty in obeying Him.
"It seems to me that the very contradiction and opposition we meet with
from our fellow-men, ought to rouse our spirit to love them more, for they
serve as a whetstone to sharpen our virtue.
"Aloes make honey seem sweeter; and wine has a more delicious flavour if we
drink it after having eaten bitter almonds. It is true that mostly a little
conflict and struggle goes on in our minds: but in the end it will surely
come to pass with us what the Psalmist commands when he says: _Be angry and
sin not._[1]
"What! Shall we not bear with those whom God Himself bears with? We who
have ever before our eyes the great example of Jesus Christ on the Cross
praying for His enemies. And then, too, our enemies have not crucified us;
they have not persecuted us, even to death; we have not yet resisted unto
blood.
"Again, who would not love this dear enemy for whom Jesus Christ prayed?
For whom He died? For, mark it well, He prayed not only for those who
crucified Him, but also for those who persecute us, and Him in us. As He
testified to Saul when He cried out to Him: _Why persecutest thou Me_?[2]
That is to say, Me in My members.
"We are not, indeed, obliged to love the vices of our enemy; his hatred of
good, the enmity which he bears us; for all these things are displeasing to
God, Whom they offend; but we must separate the sin from the sinner, the
precious from the vile, if we desire to be like our Saviour."
He did not admit the maxim of the world: "We must not trust a reconciled
enemy." In his opinion the exact contrary of this dictum is more in
accordance with truth.
He used to say that "fallings out" in the case of friends only serve
to draw the bonds of friendship closer, just as the smith makes use of
water to increase the heat of his fire. He added, as a well-known fact in
surgery, that the callosity which forms over a fractured bone is so dense
that the limb will never break again at that particular place.
Indeed, when a reconciliation has taken place between two persons hitherto
at variance, it is almost certain that each will set to work, perhaps even
unconsciously, to make the newly-cemented friendship firmer. The offender
by avoiding further offence, and atoning as far as possible for what is
past, and the offended person by endeavouring in a truly generous spirit to
bury that past in oblivion.
[Footnote 1: Psalm iv. 5.]
[Footnote 2: Acts ix. 4.]