No, you will not have my hate!

Reflections for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18, 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 & Matthew 5:38-48)

On the evening of Friday, 13th November 2015, 130 people were killed and 416 injured in a violent attack targeting 6 different locations in Paris, France. A 10-man squad armed with assault rifles and explosives orchestrated this act of violence, the deadliest that France had known since world war II. Among the dead was Hélène Muyal-Leiris, a 32-year-old woman, whose journalist husband Antoine Leiris, was at home watching Melvil, their 17-month-old son.

Three days after her death, Antoine penned this open letter to his wife’s killers:

Friday night, you took an exceptional life -- the love of my life, the mother of my son -- but you will not have my hatred I don't know who you are and I don't want to know, you are dead souls. If this God, for whom you kill blindly, made us in his image, every bullet in the body of my wife would have been one more wound in His heart.

So, no, I will not grant you the gift of my hatred. You're asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security. You lost.

I saw her this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago. Of course, I am devastated by this pain, I give you this little victory, but the pain will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will find ourselves again in this paradise of free love to which you have no access.

We are just two, my son and me, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world. I don't have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17 months old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life, this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either.

Antoine’s 2016 international best-selling memoir You Will Not Have my Hate (French title: Vous n'aurez pas ma haine) narrated his continued grief and his resolution to refuse his wife’s killers the gift of hatred. Antoine’s response is a revolt, a protest, and an act of defiance against the cycle of violence. It is this spirit of defiance that this Sunday’s Gospel proposes through its seemingly unrealistic demands: do not resist an evil person, turn the other cheek, hand over your cloak as well, walk an extra mile, love your enemies, and pray for your persecutors!

No, these demands are not calls for compliance to abuse or fatalistic and passive submission to violence! In fact, they advocate a more radical call to defiance: to resist the cycle of violence. A cycle of violence begins when someone slaps you, unjustly demands your tunic, forces you to carry his stuff for a mile, or persecutes you for no reason. The natural instinct or reflex to this aggression is to slap back, counter-attack, or execute revenge. The violence of the response seems to be legitimised by the violence of the aggressor. The ‘he started it’ argument constitutes the foundation of this law of retaliation, found in the Bible (Exodus 21.24) and even in the code of Hammurabi (Assyrian civilisation 1730 BC).

The law of retaliation seeks to propose a ‘fair’ system of justice and a workable model of social living. Its logic for restoring justice is circular: ‘give’ and ‘take’. Unfortunately, this logic cannot end the cycle of violence. The violent response to the violence of the aggressor triggers a violent counter-response. French anthropologist René Girard, writing on the mechanism of retaliation and retributive justice argues that the endless cycle of violence affects the victim just as it aims to affect the aggressor. The Gospel proposes an alternative mechanism that can end the cycle of violence and break the circular logic of ‘give’ and ‘take’.

In refusing to respond to the aggressor’s violence with violence, we interrupt the mechanism of violence and thus open a new way to resolve the conflict. In refusing to return evil for evil and trying to love my visible enemy, I defeat an even more dangerous invisible enemy: the cycle of violence. The logic of love that Jesus proposes is not founded on the meticulous reciprocity of ‘give’ and ‘take’. It does not seek compensatory justice (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth) but relational excess (love your enemies and pray for your persecutors).

Is this logic even realistic? Can such an idealistic notion of justice guarantee a functional society? Realistically, the logic of love seems utopian as the law of retaliation (give and take) continues to regulate our social living. We still need laws, police, prisons, threats, fines, etc to ensure the rule of the law. Peace, as it is understood today, means having a bigger stick than the other guy. Jesus’ alternative logic, however, is a critic of the deficiencies of retributive justice and a pointer to a better way of relating, which is not governed by violence or fear.

To Jesus, turning the cheek, giving up the cloak, accompanying, loving your enemies, and praying for your persecutors are ways to “become perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Gospel) and “becoming holy for the Lord is Holy” (first reading). The logic of Jesus introduces us to a process of perfection where love replaces fear as the governing principle of our individual and collective lives. This process implies therefore quitting the cycle of violence in order to emulate the holiness and perfection of the Heavenly Father, to whom justice is love. By refusing to offer the gift of hatred to our enemies, we gift ourselves the opportunity to become our Father’s holy and perfect children.