If love toward one’s neighbor is the principle of charity, loving one’s enemies is its sublime application, for such a virtue is one of the greatest victories attainable over selfishness and pride.

However, there is usually a misunderstanding as to  the meaning of the word love in this context. Jesus did not mean by these words that one must have for one’s enemy the tenderness that one would have for a brother, sister or friend. Love presupposes trust, and we could not trust someone who we know means us harm. We could not have the same effusion of friendship with such a person, knowing that he or she is capable of abusing it. Among persons who distrust one another, the bonds of affinity cannot be the same as those that exist among those who are in communion of thought. Finally, one cannot feel the same pleasure upon meeting an enemy that one feels upon meeting a friend.

Furthermore, this sentiment results from a physical law: the law of assimilation and repulsion of fluids. A malevolent thought emits a fluidic current whose impression is painful; a benevolent thought  envelops you  in  a  pleasant emanation.  Hence  the difference in sensations one experiences when close to a friend or an enemy. To love one’s enemies, therefore, cannot mean that one should not make a difference between them and one’s friends. This precept seems difficult, even impossible to practice, only because people have wrongly believed that it prescribes giving friends and enemies the same place in their hearts. Since the poverty of the human language forces us to use the same term to express the various nuances of sentiments,  reason calls us to differentiate them according to each case.

To love one’s  enemies, therefore, does not mean holding for them an affection that is not natural, since contact with an enemy makes the heart beat in a much different way than does contact with a friend. It means holding neither hatred, rancor nor desires for vengeance against them; it means forgiving them unconditionally and without ulterior motives for the evil they have caused us; it means not setting up any obstacles to reconciliation; it means wanting the good for them instead of wishing them evil; it means rejoicing instead of despairing for the good that reaches them; it means extending to them a helping hand in case of necessity; it means abstaining either in word or act from anything that might harm them; finally, it means repaying their evil with good in everything with no intention of humiliating them. Whoever does this fulfills the conditions of the commandment: Love your enemies.