RE “I wonder how we have got it wrong” (Real Life, CL 7/12/08). We have got it wrong, in many ways and in particular for the action taken with the Bali bombers.
Jesus calls us to love our enemies, “I say to you love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you”. (Lk 6:27-28)
Matthew records a moment when Jesus will say, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes the sun to shine on the bad and the good, and causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust”. (Matt 5:44-45)
Whoever does what is wrong has fallen victim to the spirit of evil, those angels of darkness we know walk this earth to deceive us.
Unfortunately, this is a reality rarely mentioned for our recognition and preparation.
Baptism frees us from original sin and from then on we face a warfare between that angel of all evil and his minions, and him whom we worship and know will bring us to his eternal home.
For the Bali bombers, we have to say that they thought they were doing right as they knew it, they did not lack intelligence.
Had they been with us still there is the human possibility, remote as it may be, that they would have discovered a God of mercy and been forgiven.
Somewhere deep within us we have to forgive also. They too were made in the likeness of God as we are, and we recognise that spirit within them brutally misshaped by this same dark evil we face.
R PARKER
Oxley, Qld
