“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

“The perfection of brotherly love lies in the love of one’s enemies.” So St. Aelred of Rievaulx writes in one of his more well-known works, The Mirror of Charity. Every year, this passage comes up in the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours, the daily prayers required of every priest and vowed religious in the Church, and it doesn’t take long to see why the Church chose to incorporate this passage into her universal liturgical prayer.

I bring it up because this English monk from the 1100s wrote it as part of his reflection on the words we’ve taken as the theme of this year: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The point he makes is that this prayer is a powerful expression and example of Christ’s command to love even our enemies. The fact that Jesus, the God-Man and omnipotent creator of the world, would allow himself to be tortured and crucified in the first place is a powerful testament to his love. He did not have to let this happen, but he chose to endure it meekly for the good of the very people who crucified him, which ultimately is all of us whose sins caused the cross. St. Aelred is obviously very moved by the realization that, over and above his willingness to die, Jesus went so far as to pray for his enemies:

Who could listen to that wonderful prayer, so full of warmth, of love, of unshakeable serenity—Father, forgive them—and hesitate to embrace his enemies with overflowing love? Father, he says, forgive them. Is any gentleness, any love, lacking in this prayer?

As if that weren’t enough, St. Aelred adds:

Yet he put into it something more. It was not enough to pray for them: he wanted also to make excuses for them. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. They are great sinners, yes, but they have little judgment; therefore, Father, forgive them. They are nailing me to the cross, but they do not know who it is that they are nailing to the cross: if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; therefore, Father, forgive them. They think it is a lawbreaker, an impostor claiming to be God, a seducer of the people. I have hidden my face from them, and they do not recognize my glory; therefore, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

    As we continue in the Lenten journey, this 9-year journey, this lifelong journey away from sin and towards the God who died for us and our salvation, we would do well to let ourselves be so moved and to take to heart this lesson in what it means to love our enemies. That is, after all, the very point of Lent: to grow in our capacity to love. We cut away excesses that siphon off the love we should give to God and neighbor. We dedicate ourselves to greater prayer so that we can become more like God who is love. We give of our time, talent, and treasure to those in need because love seeks the good of the other.

What St. Aelred is doing here is carrying this to its fullest conclusion. If we wish “to savor the joy of brotherly love with greater perfection and delight,” he says, then we “must extend even to [our] enemies the embrace of true love.” Each time we meditate upon the words of Christ, upon his prayer for us - “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” - we ought to try to cultivate that same attitude for others. When your enemies make you suffer, unite it to the cross of Christ. When your enemies - or even just your sinful friends - make you suffer, pray for them as Jesus prayed for you. When your heart and mind want to latch onto just how bad their sins and crimes are, strive like Christ to see how they may not understand what it is they’re doing. As St. Aelred put it, “make excuses” for them.

To be clear, when told to “make excuses,” the point isn’t to pretend that what is being done isn’t evil. Jesus never says it’s okay that they crucify him and his desire for their conversion is very real. The point is that trying to understand how someone might be acting in ignorance or confusion or misunderstanding can foster humility in ourselves. We love the truth when we acknowledge that the harm done to us is evil. We love the person who hurt us when we try to see how their own weakness may be partly to blame for them making that evil choice. It’s another way of practicing the common adage of “love the sinner, hate the sin.”

By trying to find a reason for the sinner’s misunderstanding, we are loving them in the sense of taking their weakness into account just as God takes our weaknesses into account when he forgives us. This also isn’t meant to say that criminals shouldn’t be punished for their crimes just because of ignorance. The legal system can and does take ignorance and intention into account, but there are crimes which cannot go unaddressed even if the criminal does not understand why. St. Aelred’s advice and Jesus’ example on the cross are not commentaries on the legal system. They are calls to conversion and love. The example of St. Maria Goretti’s mother might be a helpful context for us in regard to the difference between social law and personal forgiveness. When her daughter’s murderer came to her and asked for forgiveness, she forgave him. She did not, however, say he should have been spared the 30 years in prison he received for his crime. Indeed, it was partly his time in prison that enabled him to come to conversion. Paradoxical though it may seem, we can “make excuses” for our enemies even as we acknowledge the need for legal recourse. The key to both, ultimately, is that it’s done out of love.

“The perfection of brotherly love lies in the love of one’s enemies.” We were enemies of God. Every sin makes us such. Yet, Jesus loved us to the point of death on the cross, praying for us and even making excuses for us. May such a perfection of love inspire us then to stop making excuses for ourselves and start loving others as he has loved us.