We must embrace love, not hate, but in a way, that can mean, we must hate hate, that is, we must hate sin:One of the fathers said: “Unless you hate, you cannot love. If you hate sin, you do what is righteous, as it is written: ‘Turn away from evil and do the thing that is good’ [Ps 36:27]. The elder said we should hate sin to indicate that sin is something we should completely reject from the fullness of our being. The elder is using hate to fight against itself, to use hate to self-destruction, so that in the end, when we hate hate, we destroy hate, leaving only love in the aftermath (similar to the way Christ embraces death to destroy death from within). Let us hate hate so that we can truly have that love, and have it as the foundation of all that we should do.

Source: New York Times February 20, 2024 09:44 UTC