Lectio Divina Reading

January 19, 2004

Love and Responsibility

It was human love that helped me to understand divine love. Human love at its best, unselfish, glowing, illuminating our days, gives us a glimpse of the love of God for man. Love is the best thing we can know in this life, but it must be sustained by an effort of the will. It is not just an emotion, a warm feeling of gratification. It must lie still and quiet, dull and smoldering, for periods. It grows through suffering and patience and compassion. We must suffer for those we love, we must endure their trials and their sufferings, we must even take upon ourselves the penalties due their sins. Thus we learn to understand the love of God for His creatures. Thus we understand the Crucifixion.

It is hard to explain. It is difficult to make myself clear. If St. Paul, to whom Christ Himself spoke, saw things as through a glass, darkly, how can I hope to make things clear to you? I have only tried to put down what I do understand, urging you again not to discredit Christianity because of the faults of Christians.

Perhaps you will not see my point at all as you read this, but I pray that you too will be led by the Holy Spirit from darkness into light. Even the littlie I see is light to me in the darkest of days and hours. And I could not breathe or live without that light which I have now, the light of Faith which has been given to me by a merciful God who is the Light of the world.

Chapter Twelve, From Union Square to Rome

A Radical Love, Wisdom from Dorothy Day, Patricia Mitchell, Editor

Lectio Divina for CP Groups
Contemplative Outreach of Dallas