FAITH • PRAYER • CHARITY
Knowing how to pray for your enemies is one of the hardest things Jesus ever asked of us. He did not soften the command. He did not offer exceptions; He said it plainly, in broad daylight, in front of everyone: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Most of us nod along – and then quietly avoid it when it counts.
Most reflections on this verse assume you are the one with the enemy – that you are the wounded party doing the hard work of forgiving someone who wronged you. That is a real and worthy conversation. However, there is another side to this command that almost nobody talks about.
What do you do when someone else has decided that you are their enemy? What happens when the hatred is entirely on their side – when you are not bitter toward them, but they are bitter toward you? Scripture still calls you to pray for them. This guide walks through both situations – the enemy you struggle to love, and the person who has made you their target – because Catholic prayer for enemies covers both.
The Command Nobody Wants to Obey
Jesus gave this instruction in the Sermon on the Mount, and He was not speaking metaphorically. The culture around Him operated on a clear principle: love your neighbor, tolerate the stranger, and return hostility to your enemy. That was considered reasonable. That was, in fact, considered just.
Jesus flipped it entirely.
He told His followers to love the people working against them – to bless those who curse them, to do good to those who hate them, and to pray for those who persecute them (Luke 6:27-28). Furthermore, the Apostle Paul echoed this in Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”
This is not a suggestion for the spiritually advanced. Instead, it is a baseline expectation for every baptized Christian. That realization either deepens our prayer life or reveals how far we still have to go.
The First Kind of Enemy – The One You Struggle to Love
Most of us know this experience. Someone hurt you – a friend who betrayed your confidence, a family member who chose cruelty, a colleague who undermined you, a stranger whose carelessness cost you something real. You are not their enemy in your own heart. However, the resentment is there, sitting quietly in your chest, surfacing every time their name comes up.
Praying for people who hurt you is hard because it requires you to soften toward someone you have every human reason to harden against. The Catechism reminds us that this is precisely where mercy operates: “It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.” (CCC 2843)
Notice what the Church says there. You do not have to feel warmth toward this person. Additionally, you do not have to pretend the wound did not happen. What you must do instead is offer your heart to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to do the work of transformation. Prayer is the mechanism through which that happens.
Starting is often the hardest part. Even so, a simple and honest prayer – “Lord, I do not want to pray for this person, but I am willing. Help me want to.” – is enough to begin.
The Second Kind of Enemy – When They Have Made You Their Target
This is the angle most teachers skip. It requires, therefore, a different kind of honesty.
We are living through a heavy season. Without naming the specifics, I can tell you that we have people in our lives who have positioned themselves as our adversaries – people who have acted against us, who have chosen hostility where none was warranted, who have decided that we are the problem to be solved. We did not ask for that designation. Moreover, we have not returned it in kind. Yet here we are.
Maybe you know this territory too. A neighbor who decided to make your life difficult. A family member who chose a side and threw stones from it. A coworker who built a campaign against you. A former friend who turned their knowledge of your vulnerabilities into a weapon. You do not hate these people. Nevertheless, they have made you their enemy, and that is its own particular weight to carry.
Scripture speaks directly to this experience. Proverbs 25:21-22 says: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.” Consequently, Paul quotes this in Romans 12:20 and adds: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” The assumption in both texts is that the evil is coming at you – not from you.
Praying for someone who has made you their enemy requires a different posture than praying for someone you personally resent. There is no grudge to release on your side. Instead, the work is something closer to intercession for a person who does not know what they are doing to themselves. St. Stephen, dying under a hail of stones, prayed: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” (Acts 7:60) He was not releasing bitterness. Rather, he was interceding from a place of genuine grief for their souls.
That is the model. Not performance. Not “I forgive you” said through gritted teeth. In other words – actual intercession, asking God to reach them before they do more damage to themselves and others.
What Jesus and the Saints Teach Us About Praying for Those Who Hate You
Jesus at the Cross – The Supreme Example
Before we look to the saints, we have to look at the cross. Because nothing in Christian history comes close to what Jesus did there.
He had been falsely accused. His own people, furthermore, handed Him over. The authorities who condemned Him knew the charges were hollow. Religious leaders who should have recognized Him turned the crowd against Him instead. Soldiers drove nails through His hands. Bystanders mocked Him while He was dying. And in the middle of all of it, He prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
He did not pray that prayer after the resurrection, from a place of triumph. Rather, He prayed it while it was still happening – while the injustice was still in motion, while the pain was at its worst, while no one had yet acknowledged a single wrong. That is the model for how to pray for your enemies. Not after the dust settles. During it.
The Saints Who Followed His Example
The saints who followed Him did the same. Their examples show us that praying for those who hate you is not only possible – it is transformative.
St. Maria Goretti was eleven years old when Alessandro Serenelli stabbed her fourteen times for refusing his advances. Dying in the hospital the next day, she told her mother she forgave him and hoped to meet him in heaven. As a result, Alessandro spent years in prison, hardened and unrepentant – until Maria appeared to him in a dream and handed him white lilies. He converted completely. He then attended her canonization in 1950 and wept openly in the crowd. Her enemy-prayer outlasted her own life.
St. Joan of Arc was tried and condemned by a church tribunal corrupted by political enemies who had already decided her verdict before the questioning began. She was nineteen years old. Throughout the months of interrogation, she answered with clarity, charity, and without bitterness toward the men working to destroy her. At the stake, she asked for a cross to hold. She died calling on the name of Jesus – and forgiving the judges who put her there. Twenty-five years later, the Church retried her case and declared her innocent. Consequently, her accusers were the ones history condemned.
St. John Paul II was shot at close range in St. Peter’s Square in 1981. He did not simply forgive his would-be assassin from a hospital bed – he visited Mehmet Ali Agca in his prison cell two years later, spoke with him privately, and publicly called him his brother. That was not a press moment. That was Catholic prayer for enemies made visible.
What the Church Says
None of these are extraordinary exceptions to the Christian life. According to the Church, they are its fullest expression. The Catechism teaches: “The virtue of fortitude enables us to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions.” (CCC 1808) Therefore, praying for those who oppose us is an act of fortitude as much as charity.
The Our Father itself is an enemy-prayer framework. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Every time we pray it, we link our own forgiveness to our willingness to extend it. That linkage is not incidental – Jesus explained it explicitly in Matthew 6:14-15. We pray it anyway, trusting that the asking changes us even when the feeling has not yet followed.
Your Anger Is Not the Problem
Before we talk about how to pray for your enemies, we need to talk about what is probably sitting in your chest right now.
Anger is not a sin. Let that land for a moment. The Catechism teaches that anger is a passion – a movement of the soul – and passions are morally neutral until we choose what to do with them (CCC 1767). Jesus Himself was angry. For example, He overturned tables in the Temple. He called out the Pharisees with words that were sharp and deliberate. Anger in the face of genuine injustice is not a spiritual failure. Rather, it is a human response to something that is actually wrong.
So if someone has treated you unjustly – if they have lied about you, moved against you, chosen to make you their target without cause – your anger is not something to suppress or be ashamed of. In fact, it is information. It is your soul recognizing that something real has been violated.
The question is never whether you feel angry. The question is, therefore, what you do with it.
Anger that turns inward becomes bitterness. Bitterness hardens into resentment, and as a result, resentment damages the person carrying it far more than the one who caused it. However, anger handed directly to God becomes something else entirely. It becomes prayer. It becomes the raw material He uses to do His most serious work in us.
You are allowed to walk into prayer furious. You are allowed to say – Lord, this is not fair. What they did was wrong. I am angry and I do not know what to do with it. That honesty is not a barrier to praying for people who hurt you. It is, in fact, the beginning of it. God does not need you to arrive cleaned up. He needs you to arrive.
How to Pray for Your Enemies – A Catholic Step-by-Step Guide
Knowing you should pray for your enemies and knowing how are two different things. Here, then, are practical starting points drawn from Scripture, the saints, and Catholic tradition.
Begin With Honesty and Offer Your Anger
Start with honesty. Tell God exactly where you are. If you resent them, say so. If you feel more like a target than a sinner in this situation, say that too. God already knows. Naming it, therefore, clears the channel for something more.
Let your anger be your offering. Instead of waiting until the anger passes to pray, bring it to God as the offering itself. Place it at His feet. Say – I cannot carry this and I cannot fix this. It is Yours. Anger handed over to God is not wasted. It is, in fact, transformed. That is precisely the work He does best.
Take Them to Mass and to the Cross
Take them to Mass. This is one of the most powerful and distinctly Catholic ways to pray for your enemies. When you arrive at Mass, name them internally – this person, this situation – and carry them with you to the altar. The sacrifice of the Mass is the same sacrifice as Calvary, made present again. Consequently, there is no more powerful place to bring someone you are struggling to pray for. You do not have to feel charitable when you do it. You simply have to show up and place them there.
Stand with them at the foot of the cross. In your personal prayer, imagine yourself standing at Calvary – not as a spectator, but as someone who has brought this person with you. Place them at the foot of the cross and step back. Let Christ be the one who deals with what you cannot. You are not responsible for their conversion, their conscience, or their consequences. Your only job, therefore, is to bring them to Him and leave them there.
Build a Daily Practice
Pray for their conversion first. The most charitable prayer you can offer anyone is that they draw closer to Christ. It requires no false warmth on your part. It simply asks that God reach them – and that is something you can mean even on your worst days.
Use a structured prayer when words fail. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy, prayed for a specific person, is one of the most powerful forms of intercession available to us. So is the Rosary, offered for their intentions without condition.
Ask the saints to intercede alongside you. St. Thomas More, executed by a king he had faithfully served, is a patron of those suffering at the hands of powerful adversaries. Additionally, St. John of the Cross endured imprisonment by members of his own religious community. Neither gave way to bitterness. Both, therefore, can pray with you.
Return to it daily. Enemy-prayer is not a one-time act. It is a discipline. The feelings will not always follow immediately, and that is acceptable. Returning to prayer for someone who has opposed you – even when it is hard, even when the anger resurfaces – is itself a form of spiritual resistance against the hardness that hatred invites.
One practical structure worth trying: at the end of each day, pray one decade of the Rosary for the person you find hardest to love, and one Hail Mary for the person who has most actively opposed you. Over time, something shifts. It always does.
Reflection Questions
Use these questions for personal journaling, small group discussion, or as a monthly examination of conscience. A printable version is available for download below.
1. Is there someone in your life toward whom you carry resentment or unforgiveness? Have you brought that person to God in prayer by name?
2. Is there someone who has treated you as an enemy – without cause, or out of proportion to any real offense? How have you responded to that hostility in your heart?
3. When you feel angry about an injustice done to you, what do you usually do with that anger? Have you ever brought it directly to God as an offering instead of waiting for it to pass?
4. What would it look like to take your hardest relationship to Mass this week – to carry that person to the altar and leave them there?
5. When you pray the Our Father, do you mean the line about forgiving those who trespass against you? What would it take to mean it more fully?
6. What would it look like to intercede for your hardest relationship the way Jesus interceded from the cross – not after the pain ended, but while it was still happening?
7. Which saint’s example of enemy-love most challenges or inspires you? Have you asked for their intercession?
8. Is there a concrete act of charity – a prayer, a Mass offered, a kind word – you could offer this week for someone who has opposed you?
A Prayer for Your Enemies
Lord Jesus, You commanded me to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me. I do not always know how. I confess that my heart is not always willing. Some days I arrive here angry, and I am bringing that anger to You now because I do not know what else to do with it.
For those I struggle to love: soften my heart. For those who have made me their target: reach them. I am placing them at the foot of Your cross because that is the only place big enough to hold what has happened between us. Deal with them the way only You can. Deal with me the same way.
Protect their souls. Bring them back to You before the hardness sets in any further. And let my prayer for them be the thing that keeps me from becoming what I am praying against.
St. Stephen, St. Maria Goretti, St. Joan of Arc, St. John Paul II – pray for us.
Amen.
Citations and Sources
Scripture
- Luke 23:34 – Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do
- Matthew 5:44 – Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
- Luke 6:27-28 – Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you
- Romans 12:14, 20-21 – Bless those who persecute you; overcome evil with good
- Proverbs 25:21-22 – If your enemy is hungry, feed him
- Acts 7:60 – St. Stephen’s dying prayer for his persecutors
- Matthew 6:14-15 – On forgiving those who trespass against us
Catechism of the Catholic Church
- CCC 1767 – On passions and their moral neutrality: vatican.va
- CCC 2843 – On the Holy Spirit transforming injury into intercession: vatican.va
- CCC 1808 – On the virtue of fortitude: vatican.va
- CCC 1933 – On human solidarity and fraternal charity: vatican.va
Papal Documents
- John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), 1980: vatican.va
Further Reading and Resources
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops – Forgiveness and Reconciliation: usccb.org
- St. Joan of Arc – Catholic Encyclopedia: newadvent.org
- Chaplet of Divine Mercy (text and audio): thedivinemercy.org
- Bishop Robert Barron on Loving Your Enemies: wordonfire.org
- Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire: renewalministries.net
- Catholic Sistas: catholicsistas.com
Download the reflection questions as a printable PDF – perfect for journaling, a small group, or a quiet hour of prayer.
If this post spoke to you, share it with a woman who is carrying something heavy right now. She may need this exact reminder today.
