Gospel (Mt 5,43-48) - At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: «You have heard that it was said: “You will love your neighbor” and you will hate your enemy. But I say to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven; he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't publicans do this too? And if you only greet your brothers, what are you doing that is extraordinary? Don't pagans do this too? You, therefore, be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

Jesus is bold in the ideal he proposes. He still says: «Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect». This is patently impossible. And yet if we welcome his love we are on the path to the very perfection of God. In a time in which the logic of opposition and the search for the enemy dominates, the exhortation to love our enemies appears completely shocking, but it is liberating . This word frees us from the search for the enemy and for someone to oppose, which has become a sort of unique thought. Jesus knows well that life is also made up of difficult relationships in which the encounter with the other often degenerates into a clash; he knows that enmities between men are easy. But precisely to defeat this infernal chain, Jesus proposes an exhortation that no one has ever dared to pronounce: "Love your enemies!". Only in this way does love truly win. The Gospel does not deny the complexity of life, if anything it denies that the logic of conflict is the only one that regulates relationships and above all that it is inevitable. Also because someone who is an enemy today can go back to being or becoming a friend.