WHEN LOVE IS SAID AND DONE
“If we love one another, God remains in us.’” – 1 Jn. 4:12
We need to enlarge our heart to the measure of the heart of Jesus. How much work that means! Yet this is the only thing necessary. When this is done, all is done. It means loving everyone we meet as God loves them. And since we live in time, we must love our neighbors one by one, without holding in our heart any left-over affection for the brother or sister met a moment before. It is the same Jesus, after all, whom we love in everyone. If anything left-over remains, it means that the preceding brother or sister was loved for our sake or for theirs… not for Jesus. That is the problem.
Our most important task is to maintain the chastity of God and that is: to keep love in our hearts as Jesus loves. Hence, to be pure we need not deprive our heart and repress the love in it. We need to enlarge our heart to the measure of the heart of Jesus and love everyone. And as one sacred host, from among the millions of hosts on the earth, is enough to nourish us with God, so one brother or sister, the one whom God’s will puts next to us, is enough to give us communion with humanity, which is the mystical Jesus.
Lord Jesus, help me to see with your eyes, listen with your ears, and love with your heart.
Chiara Lubich, The Art of Loving