Reflection
We need to awaken the power of love in the world. Love speaks the language of oneness, of unity rather than separation. Love can open us to our deep participation in the life of the whole; it can teach us once again how to listen to life, feel life’s heartbeat, sense its soul. It can open us to the sacred within all of creation and can reconnect us with our primal knowing that the Divine is present in everything—in every breath, every stone, every animate and inanimate thing. In the oneness of love, everything is included, and everything is sacred. Its true meaning is not easily describable. It is the willingness to open oneself to see, appreciate and respect the true value of another, a willingness to take on the joys and sufferings of being in a caring relationship. We all need love for a completely fulfilling life. Like many things, the concept of love has been romanticized and marketed. Yet, that cannot destroy the essence of it. The desire for unity deep within all life is fulfilled by love. We experience the love of God through being loved by others.
Adapted from Llywelyn Vaughn-Lee
Prayer
Let us love one another for love comes from God.
1John 4:7
Action
Read and reflect on Paul’s commentary on love in 1 Corinthians 13.
Suggested Reading
I’m giving you a new commandment…to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
John 13:34
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is more powerful, love gives life, love makes hope blossom in the wilderness.
Pope Francis
Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor…Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.
Mother Teresa
Where there is love there is life.
Mahatma Gandhi
One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
Paulo Coelho
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao-tzu
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.
Merle Shain
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust
So much of what we know of love we learn at home.
Unknown
A friend is what the heart needs all the time.
Henry Van Dyke