Are Christians naive? I will never forget a conversation that I had with a group of fellow church elders (I was not yet Catholic). I referred to my boss, who also happened to be a parishioner, as an enemy. You would have thought I threw a grenade into the meeting. An enemy? I guess the use of that word shocked them. To me, it was the right word. I had been this person's friend and a faithful employee for almost eight years. Jealousy and spite caused him to turn on me. He tried to get me in trouble with the university that oversaw the grant which funded our work. He tried to get me in trouble with the law. In the long run, it didn't work, I moved on to other endeavors, and years later he called me to apologize for what he had done, and we were reconciled. But my naivety went away with this event.

Do we not have enemies? Or, is it inappropriate to refer to an enemy as an enemy? The prophet Jeremiah certainly had them. His former friends were watching him closely to see how they could destroy him. His hometown hatched a plot to kill him. His own family wanted to see him dead. Jeremiah would not be amused if we said to him, "But don't call them enemies." That's not nice. I am of the opinion that we do well to know who our enemies are. If you work in any type of group, you will likely have enemies - people who want to see you get hurt, people who want you gone, even if they might not want you dead. Jesus teaches us to love our enemies. That probably begins with knowing who they are. Jeremiah knows who his enemies are and relies on God for help. His view is not the same as Jesus' view, since he wants to see the vengeance of God on his enemies. But at least he's not so foolish as to think that life is all peaches and cream and no one is out to get him. How can a person deal effectively with their enemies if they live with the illusion that this world is the Garden of Eden?

The psalmist recognizes that enemies come in a variety of forms but, whether an enemy is another human being or not, only God can hear our cry for deliverance. Enemies cause distress. A person can feel overwhelmed by them. The psalmist uses the following language to describe this feeling:

The breakers of death surged round about me,
the destroying floods overwhelmed me;
The cords of the nether world enmeshed me,
the snares of death overtook me.

When my boss made his move to get me in trouble, it almost immobilized me. I lay in bed on a Saturday morning, in a fetal position, until about 10:30. My wife called my good friend Bob who came to my house, insisted that I get out of bed, and that, if I didn't, he was going to pull me out of bed and kick my back side. God used Bob as the necessary instrument to get me trusting in him and taking the necessary steps to meet the challenge of my enemy. I had been naive; I couldn't imagine that anyone could do what my boss had done. It totally blindsided me but it also made me grow up spiritually and realize the kind of world in which we live.

Love our enemies? Yes. But don't be naive. Real enemies, inspired by the greatest enemy of the human race, exist.

St. Michael, defend us in battle. And send us a good friend like Bob every now and then, too.