Love

“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, The Message)

The following is from Carlo Caretto, Letters from the Desert, p. 24-25:

“I repeat again St. Augustine’s words: ‘Love and do as you will.’ Don’t worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don’t interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, “What course of action should I pursue?” Concentrate on loving instead.

And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.

Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone’s rule of life; in the end it’s the solution to every problem, the motive for all good.

“Love and do as you will.”

This is the crux. When I love I can no longer do as I will.

When I love I am love’s prisoner; and love is tremendous in its demands when it has God as its object; especially a crucified God. I can no longer do my own will. I must do the will of Jesus, which is the will of the Father.

And when I have learned to do his will, I shall have fully realized my vocation on earth and I shall have achieved the highest stage a man can reach.

The will of God. That’s what rules the world and moves the stars, what converts the nations, what starts all life and brings triumph out of death.”

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