For several months now I’ve been slowly working my way through the “bridges to contemplative living with thomas merton” booklet series. While originally intended for use as a springboard for contemplative group dialogue, when honest with yourself and God, it is a great personal guide for reflection and development of a contemplative life.  Recently I was working through a chapter where I received a special gift concerning Love.

There is a basic expectation of Christians, believers, to be loving. Something much more easily said or expected than lived out in truth and practice. For selfish desires or interests often cloud sincere love. Not just in the person who wants to express love in word and deed, but all too often also by the recipient who desires to exploit it.

For the believer who seeks the spiritual maturity where by love, Christ’s Love, is expressed in all that is said and done, it matters not how the recipient of that love responds. What is most difficult for the believer, is to moment by moment live out Christ’s Love without skewing it with their own sin based thoughts and emotions. As I read the following from bridges, I came upon an excellent help. A wonderful reminder to not just be loving, but more importantly to “live in love“:

The keenness and intensity of love brings with it suffering, of course, but joy too, because it is a foretaste of heaven. . . . Even that relationship which is set off from other loves by that slight change in phraseology (instead of “loving,” one is “in love”)—the very change in terminology, denoting a living in love, a dwelling in love at all times, being bathed in love, so that every waking thought, word, deed, and suffering is permeated by that love—yes, that relationship above all should give us not only a taste of the love of God for us but the kind of love we should have for all.

– Dorothy Day
On Pilgrimage

Source: bridges to contemplative living with thomas merton
booklet seven: adjusting you life’s vision
pg. 17

So far, when I feel frustrated or unloving, with the Holy Spirit’s help, I remember that I live, dwell in Love — Christ’s Love. I am immersed in it. I then gain a sense of God’s Love permeating my weak flesh and putting to rest my selfishness, giving clarify Christ-centered life to my desires and actions. Thus allowing me to be truly Loving.

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Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member.  Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier.  Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual.  But the one who has love, courage, and wisdom moves the world.

– Ammon Hennacy
Catholic activist
1893 – 1970