Praying for your enemies

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We’re told that we should pray for our enemies. Especially the ones that really hate you. I’m really trying to do that but I must admit that my heart isn’t in it. In fact it’s been like pulling teeth. Can anyone relate?
 
A priest at recent mass I attended had this advice:

Pray a prayer from St. Anselm: “Let them be reconciled to you and in concord with me, according to your will and for your own sake.”

And then move along.
 
Pray for their conversion, by whatever means God considers appropriate.
 
I just pray for them without liking them, and that is okay.

I pray that they would be good and dollow God’s will. I also pray that they would stop the bad or unjust things they are doing to me or someo e else, and to repent of their wrongdoings. I pray the bad deeds would not work or won’t have a detrimental effect.
 
I kind of wish you hadn’t been so explicit :confused: I wouldn’t have read what you’d posted if I had known the content AS.
God bless
 
God allowed it to rain on both of us. From God’s point of view we are both loved. We are challenged to see it from God’s pointy of view…perhaps ? 🙂
 
Yes, its not easy. But hate doesn’t fix anything. Often when we are angry with someone the only person we are hurting is ourselves.

Proverbs 25:21-22
If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat,
if thirsty, give something to drink;
For live coals you will heap on their heads,
and the Lord will vindicate you.
 
Yes pray and also memorize and keep in mind the numerous scripture verses about charity to enemies ane those who hate you. You can also point out to them scripture verses such as 1 John 3:15 “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” Even if they are not a believer or are annoyed when people quote scripture, do it anyway to signal to them that you don’t buy into their worldview that expects hatred in response to hatred.
 
Forgiveness doesn’t mean what the person did was right.

Forgiveness can recognise:
That action was evil, it offended mankind and God,

Forgiveness means:
I hope that person repents and understands the gravity of what they did, so that they can avoid Hell.

Forgiveness means:
‘God is the judge, not me.’

God doesn not want any human being to hold onto unforgiveness:
‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others.’
‘For if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you yours.’

In other words; unforgiveness can block you getting into Heaven (which results in Hell).

Let God be the Judge, and pray that the person will be remorseful for their wrongs, repent, and hopefully find God before it is too late.
 
You have issues, perhaps, you need to resolve, so you can move on…
 
Greenfields said:
I kind of wish you hadn’t been so explicit :confused: I wouldn’t have read what you’d posted if I had known the content AS.
God bless
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Any time I have read the facts surrounding the martyrdom of St. Maria Goretti ,including those which pertain to Alessandro Serenelli and to St. Maria’s mother, my soul always seems to be accompanied by a certain uneasiness , particularly when the “visual” produced by those facts is presented to my mind. Yet without these details , how could we ever know how great God’s Mercy is ; how great his grace is , how great a miracle his grace can produce in our lives and/or in the lives of others ?
 
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Thanks.Very aware of atrocities in the world and Gods mercy ,just don’t want to acumilate more in my mind that come back to replay .God bless 🙂
 
Compassion and empathy are prerequisites to for praying for a person with sincerity. So those are the skills that need to be honed when it’s necessary to pray for an enemy.

I’m assuming the OP isn’t referring to an extreme sociopath like the blurred example above, so let’s take an example we’re more likely to encounter.

I had a co-worker who disliked me for no seemingly logical reason. Compassion would require recognizing that bitter people like her live with a lot of inner pain and bitterness, and then praying that God heals those wounds in her.
 
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Oh, and sociopathy and psychopathy are recognized mental illnesses. To that degree, we can pray for those with mental illness.
 
It is hard. In these cases, I say “Lord, I make it an act of my will that I forgive _________ or I make it an act of my will to pray for ___________.” Sometimes, days or years later, feelings follow, sometimes they don’t. But either way I have purposed it in my will and set my intention.
 
Fr Robert de Grandis wrote a powerful ‘Forgiveness Prayer’

(If you google it).
He wrote it for people who struggle to forgive.
 
We can forgive with an act of the will, surrendering the person to the Lord. Feeling emotions of forgiveness is not necessary.

As followers of the Lord, we do not want to see others fall into the trap of the evil one. When someone has hurt us we can forgive them by the above way. When the memory keeps coming back to irritate us, just say a prayer to the Lord to grant them the graces they need.

Resentment only hurts us and blocks the Lord’s grace to come to us in abundance. We may have to be persistent in this, but it works, and we grow spiritually from the practice.
 
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