Saturday of the First Week of Lent
"But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father." Jesus has more than enough knowledge and authority to say something like this, because Jesus, more than anyone else, knows exactly what it means to be a true child of the heavenly Father. From eternity, Jesus is the Son of the Father. So Jesus can say with indisputable certainty that loving one’s enemies, and praying for one’s persecutors is the behavior of a child of the Father.
Jesus is the perfect example of this behavior. Jesus had - and has - no shortage of enemies. Yet Jesus loves his enemies nevertheless. Love is essential to his Divine Nature. He loved the people who became his enemies because they are also his creatures. He loves them with a limitless love and yet they are still his enemies because they could not accept him. Jesus also prayed for his persecutors. He did so from the cross, where he asked his Father to forgive those who were killing him. This is the prayer of the only-begotten Son of the Father, a true son of the Father. Jesus can say that such prayer and such love is what makes a true child of the Father because it is what the Son has always done.
If we, then, wish to take part in the adoption offered to us by Jesus, if we wish to take full ownership of our identity as a child of the Father, then we must follow the example of the prototypical child of the Father. We must follow the example of the Son, loving, forgiving, and praying for our enemies.