Everything we do affects everyone else. We are connected.
We need to be connecting points with Love, from within, connecting to God. We are touching places with the Divine source of Love. We are not aligned with this when we do not channel that Love, that heart-breaking Love that is like a mother wanting to gather her chicks, like a parent who would lay down their life for their child, a partner who would die for their spouse, a friend who would consider themselves fulfilled to self-sacrifice for love of their friend. What a challenge to rise to this, but what a necessity when the Love that did this for us is longing for reunion with lost beloved children, longing for the lost prodigal son and daughter to come home. We are sent to them, sent to incarnate Love, to demonstrate the Reality of Love. How can they deny our existence? Let Love manifest through our being. Let Holy Spirit change the way we behave so the difference we make will be Love’s difference.
Take time to pray. There is so much grace in store for us and those we love, those we are called to love. Contemplate the face of Christ. Be with Him as a friend. Let Him love you. One way is to use the Lord’s Prayer as a focus. Pause as soon as you feel like it, even if it is on the first word – “Our”. There is a profundity in that word. It communicates our unity, our family bond, our common humanity, our brotherhood and sisterhood. We are each other’s keeper. What I do for you I do for myself. I love you.
The Prayer of St Francis
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury let me sow pardon
Where there is doubt let me sow faith.
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is despair let me give hope
Where there is darkness, let me give light
Where there is sadness let me give joy.
O divine Master grant that I may
Not try to be comforted but to comfort
Not try to be understood but to understand
Not try to be loved but to love.
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Because it is in giving that we receive
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
(Music © P. Allsop 2005)
