October 4th, 2026: Be Merciful
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In Luke 6:31–36, Christians are given one of the most difficult commands in the Gospel: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and show mercy without expecting anything in return. The Orthodox Church teaches that this kind of love is more than ordinary kindness. It reveals what God is like and shows us what we are called to become as we grow toward union with Him.
The Gospel begins with a command that sounds familiar: “As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” Yet the Lord immediately takes us beyond the familiar Golden Rule. Christianity does not simply ask us to treat decent people decently. It calls us to love those who have hurt us, pray for those who oppose us, and become merciful because our heavenly Father is merciful.
What Does It Mean to Love Your Enemies?
Loving an enemy does not mean pretending that evil is good or that someone has not harmed us. It does not require Christians to approve of sinful behavior, remain in dangerous situations, or abandon appropriate boundaries. Christian love means refusing to allow hatred to determine how we see or treat another human being.
This is what makes the words of Luke 6 so challenging. Loving people who love us is natural, and doing good to people who are good to us requires little sacrifice. The Gospel asks something greater: “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” Christian love becomes most clearly visible when there is no earthly reason to expect repayment.
Rdr. Ron Somich emphasized this difficulty in his homily without trying to make the command sound easy. Most of us understand immediately why loving an enemy is difficult because we know how quickly anger, resentment, and the desire for justice can take hold of us. Yet the difficulty of the command is precisely why it belongs to the Christian journey of transformation.
Loving Our Enemies and the Orthodox Understanding of Theosis
What does loving your enemies have to do with theosis?
Theosis is the Orthodox Christian teaching that human beings are called by grace to become like God and participate in His divine life. We do not become God by nature, but we are transformed through communion with Him. When the Gospel tells us to be merciful as our Father is merciful, it shows that the Christian life is not merely about obeying rules but becoming a different kind of person.
This gives the command to love our enemies a much deeper meaning. God does not love only those who deserve His love. He gives good things even to the ungrateful and selfish, and Christians are called to imitate this divine mercy. Loving an enemy therefore becomes part of the process by which our hearts are healed and made more like God.
Jesus Christ provides the fullest example of this love. He accepted suffering, betrayal, rejection, and death for the salvation of mankind, including those who rejected Him. From the Cross came the prayer, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), revealing that divine love does not disappear when it encounters hatred.
Does loving an enemy mean feeling affection for that person?
The command to love our enemies should not be reduced to an emotion. We may not feel warmth toward someone who has betrayed, abused, insulted, or persecuted us. Christian love begins with what we choose to do with the hatred and resentment that arise within us.
We can refuse revenge. We can pray for another person’s repentance and salvation. We can ask God to heal our own heart so that the injury done to us does not become an excuse to nurture hatred. These actions may come long before our emotions have caught up with them.
This is also why forgiveness and reconciliation are not identical. Forgiveness is something Christians are commanded to pursue, while reconciliation may require repentance, restored trust, and changed behavior from another person. Loving an enemy does not mean giving an unsafe person unrestricted access to our lives; it means refusing to desire that person’s destruction.
Where else does the Bible teach this kind of love?
Rdr. Ron pointed to Moses as an extraordinary Old Testament example. After Israel fell into idolatry, Moses pleaded with God for the people and declared, “But now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Exodus 32:32). Moses was willing to place himself between judgment and people who had repeatedly rebelled.
St. Paul expresses something similarly startling in Romans 9:3. Speaking of his fellow Israelites, many of whom rejected the Gospel and opposed his ministry, he says that he could wish himself “accursed and cut off from Christ” for their sake. These words show how radically the love of God had reshaped his concern for others.
Neither Moses nor St. Paul treated rebellion as harmless. They understood sin seriously. Yet their response to sinners was not a desire to watch them perish, but a willingness to sacrifice themselves for their salvation. That is a powerful test of Christian love: when another person sins, do we desire repentance and restoration, or do we secretly enjoy the thought of that person receiving punishment?
Why did the sermon begin with the Protection of the Theotokos?
Rdr. Ron began his homily by recalling the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos. The feast remembers the vision of St. Andrew the Fool-for-Christ in the Church of Blachernae in Constantinople. During prayer, St. Andrew beheld the Mother of God surrounded by saints, praying for the Christian people and extending her veil over them as a sign of her protection and intercession.
The account teaches something important about the Orthodox understanding of the Church. The Church is not limited to the Christians we can physically see around us. The saints who have completed their earthly lives remain alive in God, and the worship of the Church joins heaven and earth in the praise of God.
Orthodox Christians therefore ask the Theotokos and the saints for their prayers in the same basic spirit in which Christians ask one another to pray for them. Their intercession does not compete with the saving work of Jesus Christ. Rather, it bears witness to the communion of the Church and to the love that members of Christ’s Body have for one another.
Are the saints really present with us in worship?
Orthodox worship constantly reminds us that visible creation is not the whole of reality. Angels, saints, and the departed faithful are not imaginary figures or merely historical memories. The Divine Liturgy places the worshiping community within the larger communion of the heavenly and earthly Church.
This truth appears throughout Orthodox worship. The hymns address the saints as living members of the Church, icons surround the congregation with visible witnesses to the Kingdom, and the prayers repeatedly join earthly worship to the worship offered before the throne of God. The church building itself teaches us that when we gather for the Divine Liturgy, we are entering something much greater than an ordinary meeting.
That does not mean Orthodox Christianity rejects science or the physical world. It means the Church refuses to reduce reality to only what can be measured by physical instruments. Christians confess an invisible creation as well as a visible one every time they profess the Nicene Creed and speak of God as Maker “of all things visible and invisible.”
How do Orthodox icons and hymns teach the faith?
The sermon also drew attention to the way the Church teaches through iconography and hymnography. The icon of the Protection depicts the Theotokos with the faithful and saints gathered beneath her protection, while the hymns of the feast explain what the Church is celebrating. Before widespread literacy, these were especially important ways of teaching Christians the stories and doctrines of the faith, and they continue to teach us today.
The Church’s liturgical calendar forms Christians through repetition. By attending the services throughout the year, we hear the Resurrection proclaimed again and again while also encountering the Nativity, Theophany, Transfiguration, the feasts of the Theotokos, and the lives of the saints. Orthodox worship does not treat these truths as information to learn once and then leave behind; we enter them repeatedly through prayer.
This is one reason regular participation in the services matters. The Church teaches us not only through classrooms and books but through what we sing, hear, see, and do. Over time, the language of worship begins to shape how Christians understand God, themselves, their neighbors, suffering, death, mercy, and eternal life.
Who was St. Romanos the Melodist?
Rdr. Ron also connected the feast with St. Romanos the Melodist, commemorated on October 1. According to the tradition of the Church, St. Romanos struggled as a reader and singer and endured ridicule because of his lack of ability. He sought refuge not in resentment but in prayer.
The Theotokos appeared to him in a dream and gave him a scroll to eat. Afterward, he received the gift of sacred poetry and hymnody and became one of the Church’s great hymnographers. Among the works traditionally associated with him is the famous Nativity kontakion beginning, “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One.”
His story reinforces one of the themes running through the homily: prayer changes how Christians respond to weakness and difficulty. St. Romanos could have allowed humiliation to become bitterness. Instead, he turned toward God, and what had been an occasion of shame became part of his service to the Church.
What connects the Protection of the Theotokos with loving our enemies?
At first, the feast and the Gospel command may seem like separate subjects. Yet both point toward a life formed by prayer for others. The Theotokos is depicted interceding for the people, Moses pleads for Israel, St. Paul expresses sacrificial concern for those who oppose him, and the Gospel commands Christians to extend love even to their enemies.
Prayer changes our relationship with other people because it becomes difficult to nurture hatred toward someone while sincerely asking God for that person’s salvation. We may begin by praying reluctantly. We may even have to begin with something as simple as asking God to give us the desire to want what is good for the person who has hurt us.
That struggle itself can become part of repentance. We stop measuring our spiritual life only by whether we feel peaceful or religious and begin asking whether our hearts are actually becoming merciful. The person who irritates us, opposes us, or wounds our pride may reveal more about the condition of our heart than the person who already loves us.
How can Christians actually begin loving their enemies?
Begin with prayer rather than waiting for the correct feeling to appear. Pray for the person by name, asking God to grant repentance, mercy, healing, and salvation. When resentment returns, resist rehearsing the injury repeatedly in your mind and turn again toward prayer.
We should also examine our own sins. Remembering our need for mercy does not excuse what another person has done, but it makes self-righteous hatred harder to maintain. The Christian who knows how much he has been forgiven becomes more capable of desiring mercy for another.
Finally, we must remember that this transformation is not accomplished by willpower alone. Rdr. Ron concluded his homily by acknowledging exactly how difficult the command is: for man alone, it would be impossible. The Christian hope is that God does not command us to become like Him and then abandon us to accomplish it by ourselves.
Loving an enemy may therefore be one of the clearest signs that grace is changing us. The world understands returning affection for affection and hostility for hostility. The Gospel reveals another way: mercy that does not depend upon whether the other person deserves it.
The Orthodox Christian life continually draws us into this transformation through prayer, repentance, the Divine Liturgy, the intercession of the saints, and participation in the sacramental life of the Church. We gather with the Church on earth and in heaven so that we may become what we could never become alone. The command is difficult, but God is with us, and nothing is impossible for Him.
Frequently Asked Questions About Loving Your Enemies
What does the Bible mean by “love your enemies”?
Luke 6 teaches Christians to seek the good of people who do not love them in return. This includes rejecting revenge, praying for enemies, practicing mercy, and desiring their repentance and salvation rather than their destruction.
Does loving your enemies mean allowing people to hurt you?
No. Christian love does not require remaining in an abusive or dangerous situation, nor does forgiveness eliminate appropriate boundaries. A Christian can seek safety and justice without nurturing hatred or a desire for revenge.
What is theosis in Orthodox Christianity?
Theosis is the lifelong transformation of the human person through participation in the grace and life of God. Loving our enemies is connected to theosis because the Gospel calls us to become merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful.
Why do Orthodox Christians ask the Theotokos to pray for them?
Orthodox Christians believe that the saints remain alive in God and continue to belong to the communion of the Church. Asking the Theotokos for her intercession means asking her to pray to God for us, not treating her as a replacement for God.
What is the Orthodox feast of the Protection of the Theotokos?
The feast commemorates the vision of St. Andrew the Fool-for-Christ, who saw the Theotokos praying for the faithful and extending her veil over them as a sign of protection. The feast emphasizes prayer, intercession, and the unity of the Church in heaven and on earth.