The Absence Of Being Offended in Love

The is a part of a section of the life of St. Nicholas Planas, where there was a woman who constantly jeered at him and mocked, herself despising the priesthood and religion. What is more worthy of note, is that in this small excerpt, St. Nicholas is said to keep a childlike innocence, always greeting the woman in cheerfulness and love, that it does not seem to be within his attention that there is even an attempt to cause offense.

I  have meditated on this before and it has been a difficult thing for me to grasp, that there is a way to love--really it is the only true way--that lacks offense. Perhaps this is why St. Isaac The Syrian says that God has no enemies.

Maybe I am the one that makes enemies by my offense. Maybe loving my enemies is not so much a command for the sake of my enemies, but for the reason I consider them to be such to begin with. Maybe loving shows there are no true enemies in the world. And all the people that offend us are not actually those people, not really. They are what we have distorted with our own pride, perhaps even our pain. But pain, I have learned, typically has two outcomes: to mar or to strengthen. And perhaps we fall into small despairs and mar the image of our "attackers." But we should heed the words of St. Ambrose: No one heals himself by wounding another.

 Do you know, beloved, that there is such a martyr who had left all of his belongings to his executioner as to say, that his life as a martyr is not only for himself but also for the executioner? .What foolishness is this?

St. Isaac The Syrian says in another place, that there is also really no such thing as evil, it is simply what we perceive to be the absence of God. God is love. Where there is no love, there is not God. We have come to call this evil.

Can love take offense? I am not convinced that it can. I hope and pray that I would remain outside the bounds of being a stumbling block to others, and that I myself would not mar the image of God by pain or pride.

St. Nicholas Planas, pray for us sinners.

Forgive me, a sinner.


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