Praying for Our Enemies

When anyone has gained this love of goodness we have been speaking of, and this imitation of God, he will be clothed with the Lord’s own compassionate heart, and will pray for his persecutors too, saying in the same way: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” [a]

But it is a clear sign of a soul not yet thoroughly cleansed of the dregs of sin when a man does not grieve with a feeling of pity over the offenses of others, but holds to the rigid sentence of a judge. For how will he be able to reach perfection of heart who lacks that by which, as the apostle has shown, the full demands of the law can be fulfilled? He says: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” And how will he, if he lacks that virtue of love which “is not grieved, is not puffed up, thinks no evil,” which “endures all things, bears all things”? For “a righteous man pities the life of his beasts, but the heart of the ungodly is without pity.”

And so a monk who condemns another with merciless and inhuman severity is quite certain to fall into the same sins himself. For “a harsh king will fall into misfortunes,” and “one who stops his ears so as not to hear the weak will himself cry out, and there will be no one to hear him.”