Love Your Enemies (from this Sunday's Gospel) in TV and film?

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Beryllos

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To love your enemies is one of Jesus’ hard teachings. It certainly doesn’t seem to be the way of the world. Can you think of movie or television stories which show love of enemies? (Books are okay too.)

To start the discussion, I have one on the lighter side: In one Ninjago TV episode,* the Ninja master asks his young apprentices “What is the best way to eliminate your enemy?” Throughout the half-hour episode, they come up with good answers like strength, discipline, choosing the right weapons, teamwork, and so on. The master tells them to keep searching, as each of those answers misses the mark.

In the end, the master tells them “The best way to eliminate your enemy is to make him your friend.” Indeed, in subsequent episodes, they go on to make friends with a former enemy, who in time becomes an essential and irreplaceable member of their group.

Loving your enemy is hard, maybe even impossible but for God’s grace. Love of enemy can begin with our being open to the mere possibility, keeping our eyes open for a pathway to reconciliation and peace with our enemy, and taking the first step on that path.

*By the way, the name of the episode is Never Trust a Snake. Doesn’t that sound Biblical? 😄
 
‘Love your enemies!’ - is in my opinion an excellent saying.
The meaning:
  • you were insulted (attacked)
  • because your opponent found a weakness in your attitude
  • your ‘enemy’ showed you that you shall improve yourself.
 
The ending of Spider-Man 3 demonstrates forgiveness of one’s enemies. Twice, now that I think of it. One of them was a friend of Spider-man/Peter who became an enemy, then turned back to friend to fight beside him in the film’s final battle.
 
Ah, the common enemy! It brings people together in movies and in real life, I think.
 
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“The Pianist”, where the title character, a Jewish pianist in hiding in bombed-out Warsaw, is spared from death and is helped to survive by a German officer.
 
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