Reflection
Love, once given, is not something that is ours to recall or to revoke; it remains what it always has been- a gift of God. Love is something that brings us into relationship with each other. It bonds us and binds us together. Love is our single true and ever-lasting communion in the One from whom life has come. It is the one common link that every human has to every other person who has ever lived. “Love each other as I have loved you!” Jesus said. He did not make any exceptions to this central directive; he did not allow prejudices, bigotry, intolerances and hatred to be built into it. He simply stated his expectation. The love that we should share as Christians is a love that does not fail.
Prayer
Lord, where there is hatred let me sow love.
Action
Is there an area in my life where bonds are strained or broken?
How can this best be repaired?
Sggested Reading
“As God has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my God’s commands and remain in God’s love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
John 15:9-17
Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
Romans 13:10
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2
Love is the only light that can constantly illuminate a world grown dim.
Pope Francis
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Rumi
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Mother Teresa
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
Thomas Merton
A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
Thomas Carlyle
Do all things with love.
Og Mandino
Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love.
Fyodor Dostoyevski
Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.
Wayne Dyer