Pray Lovingly for Your Authorities

Several years ago, around 2005, a priest living outside Venezuela sent a letter to a large group of Catholics living in our country. Already, from abroad, a hatred among Venezuelans never seen before could be felt. The main message of that letter was: “Pray lovingly for your authorities.” That “lovingly” sounded a bit strange, because there is nothing greater in life than praying lovingly for the people you love. But praying lovingly for those you think you don’t love? That is a bit harder.

Yet Jesus Christ said it clearly: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat and persecute you” (cf. Mt 5:44). And he added: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? … But love your enemies” (cf. Lk 6:27-36). There is something very painful in these Gospel words: the fact that Christians can have enemies. If Christians know they are children of God, and therefore brothers and sisters of the same Father, how can they have enemies? You may have differences with a brother by blood, and perhaps argue or fight with him now and then, but for him to be your enemy is hard to understand. Jesus Christ said it for a reason, though, because he knew how terrible hatred is.

The fact is that I loved that priest’s advice and followed it to the letter. Every time I disagreed with something an authority said or did, I would close my eyes, think about that person’s life and family (spouse, children and so on), and pray for them with great affection, asking God to fill them with his grace, enlighten them to govern as well as possible, and protect them from all harm. That way my heart did not fill with anger or resentment. Besides, from a practical point of view, feeling hatred or rancor toward someone you may not even know personally helps nothing and solves nothing. And there is nothing more unbearable than a bitter, unhappy person. In Venezuela especially, it helps a great deal to stay cheerful so that you can face the problems you have from the moment you get up until you go to bed, without infecting your spouse, children and friends with tiresome complaining and bitterness.

But this article does not stop at that priest’s words. When I searched Google for information about hatred in Venezuela, I came across the message the Virgin of Betania gave María Esperanza Bianchini in 1984. I had never read it, and it truly struck me, because the Virgin warned us about the hatred we are living through now, 27 years ago. Impressive, isn’t it?! You can look up the full message yourselves; here I will just summarize some of its lines in my own words.

In it the Virgin speaks tenderly to her “little children,” saying that her heart rejoices to see the faces of all who come seeking hope for better days, and that the spring of Betania is meant to renew their souls for a new life, a life of apostles, of service and dedication to a Mission of Love, in the light of the new dawn of her divine Son. Jesus, she says, wants all of them to rest in her maternal heart, with the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, so that all her children may join hands on the basis of the commandment “Love one another.” That, she says, is the only Truth that can save people from a war between brothers; and as long as a people longing for social justice does not come together, it will live in anguish, sorrow, darkness and brokenness. She offers her motherly love as the starting point for a law of Justice, Love, Peace and Reconciliation, and points to the means: prayer, meditation, penance and the Eucharist. She signs as Mary, Reconciler of Peoples.

And this part is also striking: she says she knows it is hard for them to understand certain things (it was 1984, and we never dreamed of hatred in our country), but that as the days go by they will realize what is happening, and she calls on everyone to rise up from that day on and become aware of the moment the world is living.

So if we reflect a little, set hatred aside (on both sides), and ALL of us think (and here I include those who at this moment think I’m out of my mind, or are perhaps insulting me, even though I can’t see them): what country does each of us want to leave our children and grandchildren? If we are truly intelligent (and I defend the intelligence of Venezuelans tooth and nail) and want to leave them a better country where Peace and Justice are lived, let us follow the Virgin’s advice and fill ourselves with God’s love through the means she points to (prayer, the Eucharist, penance and so on), and always keep in mind that ALL Venezuelans are children of God, and that harboring hatred or rancor in our hearts serves no purpose and solves nothing.

True Christians must never, not even in the worst circumstances (just ask the Virgin as she stood before her Son on the cross), harbor hatred or grudges in their hearts. Whoever calls himself a Christian must set an example of dialogue, cooperation, fraternity, peace and Love… And the best way to achieve that is to start today praying, “with great affection,” for anyone we think we hate.