The art of loving

Spirituality
The art of loving

The love that God
has poured in our hearts
does not make any distinctions,
it is a love addressed to everyone.

It is a love which does not tolerate discriminations
between the one who is pleasant
and the other who is unpleasant,
the educated and the ignorant,
the friend and the enemy...
All people must be loved.

Yet, there is a measure in this kind of love:
to love our neighbour as ourselves.
This must be taken literally.

Christian love differs from the love of this world,
where people love those who love them...
Christian love loves first,
which means it does not wait to be loved.
Just as Jesus did: He died on the cross for us,
He gave us life, being the first.

This is therefore the great art of loving:
To love everyone.
To love as we love ourselves.
Being the first one to love.

There is also a very typical and practical way
to put all this into practice:
it can be called "making ourselves one" with our neighbour.
Suffering with the one who suffers,
rejoicing with the one who rejoices
carrying our neighbour’s burdens.
Somehow, trying to become the other,
just as Jesus did: He was God and yet,
out of love, He made Himself man.

"Making ourselves one" with everyone, in everything, except sin.
Living the other, by being at one with him, living the others.

This is a great ideal.

(from Chiara Lubich’s writings)