relationships and community on Praying for your Enemies

Every time your enemy fires a curse, you must fire a blessing, and so you are to bombard back and forth with this kind of artillery. The mother grace of all graces is Christian good-will.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we...

The Sermon on the Mount contains some of the most difficult ethical injunctions in all of scripture. Many of us do not know how to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Martin Luther K...

I have found it is impossible to be unforgiving toward those I am praying for. It’s not easy to start praying for them; it’s one of the hardest things I’ve done. But when I make that person an object ...

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth: deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us a...

I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray; no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession ...

To hate is an easy lazy thing but to love takes strength everyone has but not all are willing to practice.

I personally get some inspiration for getting at the nature of this work from a story told by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse was born in 1873, to a devout Cath...

Meister Eckhart, the late 13th century German Christian theologian and mystic, reminds us that "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,"thank you," that would suffice."...

Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies, the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.

Cherish your enemies; they may be blessings in disguise.

Love your enemy-it will drive him nuts.

Lord Jesus, you send us out into the world in your name, but we prefer to stay safely behind. We are nervous, and unmotivated, and uncertain. We love to think about how you love us, but we are much mo...

May we be no one’s enemy, and may we be the friend of all that is eternal and abides with Christ. May we never quarrel with those nearest us; and if we do, may we be reconciled quickly. May we love,...

One elderly monk in his community used to show his displeasure with other monks in a highly creative way. As you may know, most monastic communities chant the psalms several times a day together in ch...

Jesus said to love our enemies. I thought I’d get off easy because I don’t have any real “enemies.” I mean, I’m not mad at North Korea or Russia or China. And I don’t think they’re mad at me. After al...

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.

God our Father We confess to you and to one another That we have been quick to anger And slow to mercy We have paid back abuse with abuse Hatred with hatred And violence with violence The world does n...

But as for us, in the abundance of your loving kindness We will come into your house. We will bow toward your holy temple in reverence of you. Lead us, O Lord, in your righteousness because ...

Pastor: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Pastor: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the...

A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men to their friends.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty t...

Gracious God, today we think of those we have ignored when they were suffering, excluded when they different, written off when they were difficult, harassed when they were our enemies. We take this mo...

One of the costliest requirements of Christlike love is Jesus’s call to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5: 44). What does this look like for Christians in today’s world...

Father–nothing escapes your notice, is beyond your care or too hard for you to take on, whether it concerns nations or individuals. You have a heart for all the world–not just our little piece of it. ...

We who formerly hated and murdered one another now live together and share the same table. We pray for our enemies and try to win those who hate us.

The best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend.

Pastor: “Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.” All: Forgive me, O God, for I have envied evil people who have mor...

Loving God, you are always ready to forgive our sins. We are much less eager to forgive those with whom we disagree. So often when we have something against our friends, family, or strangers, we escal...