Mahatma Gandhi and the Sermon on the Mount

"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."
~ Abraham Lincoln

quotes from "Break the Chain" by Sr. Phyllis Neves:

"They say that Mahatma Gandhi read from the Sermon on the Mount twice a day for the last forty years of his life. He considered these texts the greatest writings on nonviolence in the history of the world. Since he wanted to become a person of nonviolence, he treated these teachings as a basic primer, as the catechism of nonviolence. Don't you think it could make a tremendous difference in our world if more of us had the courage to do the same?

Jesus was not preaching hopeless idealism. He advocated a wise strategy for living in peace. "Love for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world," Dr. Martin Luther King wrote. Nelson Mandela put it this way: "I have never yet met an enemy whom I did not try to turn into a friend." The Christian way to get rid of enemies is to forgive them.

Lincoln, again during the Civil War, made a kind remark about a Southern general, causing a woman in shock to flare up: "Mr. President, don't you realize, that man is your enemy; your job is to destroy the enemy!"

Very graciously, Lincoln replied, "Madam, when I turn an enemy into a friend, haven't I destroyed an enemy?"

Forgiveness, then, is the process of restoring relationships. Forgiveness is the way of bringing back into relationship that which was estranged. Forgiveness is making whole again. Forgiveness is tearing down barriers to re-unite person with person. Forgiveness is a bridge to unity among all people. Forgiveness is the process of allowing kindness to replace bitterness.

So let's take on the Christian challenge, you and I, to break the chain of violence in our world by becoming links on the chain of peace and forgiveness."

Sr. Phyllis Neves
"Break the Chain"
Partners in Giving, Early Summer 2011
www.salesiansisters.org