Mercy Without Measure: Lessons in Love from the Holy Mountain (Survey Inside!)
How the discipline of loving our enemies shapes us into the likeness of Christ, drawing wisdom from Athonite spirituality
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In today’s fractured, noisy world, the call to “love your enemies” may strike us as almost impossible. Yet it stands at the heart of the Gospel and Orthodox Christian life. Preaching at Saint Mark Greek Orthodox Church, Fr. Mark Leondis’s sermon “Love Your Enemies: Living the Extraordinary Christian Life (The Mount Athos Example)” drew our attention to the radical, challenging nature of the Christian standard, rooted in the Lord’s words from the Gospel of Luke 6:27–36:
Love Your Enemies
[27] “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, [28] bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. [29] To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. [30] Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. [31] And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
[32] “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. [33] And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. [34] And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. [35] But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. [36] Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (ESV)
The Gospel Challenge: Love Without Limits
Scripture is clear: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32). Christ’s standard is not natural, not easy, and not the way of the world. “Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Be merciful, just as your Father in heaven is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36).
Fr. Mark reminded us, “It is natural for us to love those who love us… but Christ says this is not enough. Even sinners, even those far from God do these things. The Christian life is not meant to be ordinary. It is something extraordinary.” We are summoned to a supernatural way—one that mirrors God’s boundless generosity, for he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). “When we love in this way,” Fr. Mark said, “we reflect the very image of our heavenly Father.”
The Mount Athos Witness: Prayer for the Whole World
This challenge became tangible for Fr. Mark on a recent pilgrimage to Mount Athos, the spiritual “garden of the Theotokos.” The world’s ceaseless noise, the busy pace of daily responsibilities, and the barrage of cares seemed to fall away in the monastic rhythm of “stillness, prayer, and humility.” In the quiet hours of the night, surrounded by candlelit chants rising to heaven, Fr. Mark and fellow pilgrims witnessed monks living out Christ’s command with undivided attention—praying not just for themselves or their brotherhood, “but for the whole world. Believers and unbelievers, friends and enemies, the grateful and the ungrateful.”
The monks’ discipline is not mere routine but flows from the power of mercy and forgiveness that Christ exhibited on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). The rhythm of Athonite life—unceasing prayer, radical hospitality, and self-forgetting love—offers a living icon of the Gospel’s extraordinary demands. As brothers stood shoulder to shoulder in veneration, Fr. Mark observed, “To grow closer to Christ is always to grow closer to one another.” The lives of the saints, whose relics the pilgrims venerated, become tangible proofs that the law of Christ—“bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)—unites the faithful across time and space.
The Liberation of Forgiveness: Christ’s Way, Not the World’s
It is difficult to forgive. “You have to admit, it is difficult to forgive someone who has hurt us, to show kindness to someone who has wronged us. This does not come naturally. Our instinct is to close off our hearts… But in the silence of Athos, we saw another way.” The monks laid down their rights, extended hospitality, and prayed unceasingly for the world’s healing.
Fr. Mark tells the story of a young man on Mount Athos, wronged by a close friend and unwilling to forgive. An elder pointed him to the cross: “Christ forgave the soldiers who nailed him there. Did they deserve it? No. Forgiveness is not about what others deserve. It is about what your heart needs. If you hold on to hatred, you carry your enemy with you everywhere you go. If you forgive, you set yourself free.”
Through prayer and stillness, that young man found liberation—because Christ’s forgiveness is not a transaction, but a gift: “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive” (Colossians 3:13).
Mercy in an Age of Division: The Path Forward
Fr. Mark didn’t shy away from the challenges facing Christians today, noting the divisiveness and bitterness even within our own society. “Truly, that is unacceptable. Christ calls us to unite all people… We are here as one in Jesus Christ—to love not only those who love us but even those who stand against us. To give without expecting, to forgive without counting, to be merciful even as our Father in heaven is merciful.”
The discipline and focus witnessed at Athos becomes the pattern for the Christian life everywhere: “Can we live like that in the world? The answer is yes, we can. We do so through forgiveness, living as sheep with the Good Shepherd.” This is not just difficult; it is impossible without God. Yet St. Paul assures us: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
The Extraordinary Way: Becoming Icons of Christ
The instruction to love our enemies in Matthew 5:44 isn’t abstract—it’s a concrete call to action from Christ Himself. It means praying for those who hurt us, rejecting bitterness, and striving for the “unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). Mount Athos stands as a living example that this radical path can be walked, but only with persistent prayer and God’s sustaining grace.
“Do to others as you would like them to do to you.” This isn’t merely ethics; it’s a glimpse into the reality of God’s kingdom, where love overturns every selfish human instinct.