The great American civil rights leader Martin Luther King preached one of his most moving sermons on the title “Loving your enemies”. He was in gaol at the time, imprisoned for daring to suggest that American Negroes should have the same civil rights as other Americans. During his lifetime he had received death threat after death threat, he’d been maliciously accused of being a communist, his house had been bombed, and he was jailed over 20 times. Yet in this sermon he said “hate multiplies hate…in a descending spiral of violence” and is “just as injurious to the person who hates” as to his victim. But “love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” for it has “creative” and “redemptive” power.
Love Your Enemies:
A Priest’s Journey with the People: