keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?

I read this article about a priest who was attacked by an intruder attempting to rob their Divine Word Mission. When interviewed, the priest said:

"I need to pray for the one who attacked me... I feel when I pray for him in the future he can be better - everyone wants to live in harmony."

It's not like it was a peaceful hit and run either. The priest goes on to say:

"At the time I was shocked. After he attacked me I didn't recognise he used a knife to attack me. He hit me but then when I saw my blood shedding I thought 'What happened?' I didn't feel any pain at the time so I was shocked. It was terrible."

Most other people would try and hunt down their attacker to ensure justice and appropriate punishment or penalty. But despite the shock and the injury, the priest chose to forgive his attacker by praying for him. To some people, such behaviour would be viewed as ridiculous. Why pray for somebody who almost killed you?
To me, I think the priest is showing God that he is capable of accepting that we must endure suffering throughout our lives, no matter how big or small, or how frequent, and it is the behaviour we portray in our most trialling moments, that illustrates our faith.

The reason I'm writing about this is because this priest's reaction to his attacker reminds me of the South African church congregation that was mentioned in the Week 8 lecture on Providence, Free Will & Suffering, where "On 25 July 1993 St James church in Capetown was attacked by men with rifles and grenades during the evening service. Several people were killed and many wounded."
And one of the church members then goes on to say that despite the tragedy, they are thankful that God thought them worthy of receiving this suffering. It's a totally different reaction to what you would expect of most people.

I have mixed emotions on this topic. Part of me respects the strength of these peoples' faiths in praying for their attackers, but another part of me feels 'odd' (for lack of a better word), because their attackers won't care about whether or not they're being prayed for. Although I suppose it's not that the victims are trying to communicate with the villains; rather, they're communicating with God in the belief or hope that God will make the villains seek repentance and therefore step away from a path of destruction and darkness, onto the road of truth and light.

A response to the article "Stabbed priest prays for attacker"