Mt. 5:43-48 “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.“

Today’s Gospel, in which Jesus continues to speak to us of the newness that He comes to bring in relation to love for our brothers and sisters, raises new demands that can only be understood from that attitude of non-violence in which Jesus placed himself throughout his life. Not to return evil for evil, to overcome evil with good, is to have understood that evil is not cured by evil; that violence to which we respond with violence, creates a spiral that turns against everyone, but on understanding that only from the experience of that free and generous love of God the Father, who gives us everything without expecting reward, can we go beyond our aggressive impulses and look at the one who hurts or offends us like a human being, weak like us, who fails and needs understanding more than punishment.