The love of Christ

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. ~Colossians 3:12-14

It requires far more of the constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brothers and sisters in Tuscany or Madeira.  To love the whole church is one thing.  To love, that is, to delight in the graces and veil the defects, of the person who misunderstood me and opposed my plans yesterday, whose particular infirmities grate on my most sensitive feelings, or whose natural faults are precisely those from which my natural character most revolts, is quite another.  ~Elizabeth Runkle Charles, English novelist, 1828-1896

Ave Maria!  I don't know anything about this Elizabeth Runkle Charles except that she had an excellent grasp of what it means to love in the nitty-gritty of the here and now.  Another time and place are but delusions of grandeur.  It is in the present moment, with all the particular people whom God has placed therein, that He calls me to love Him with all my heart, soul, strength and mind.  I love God only as much as I love these individuals, whom He created in His image and likeness and for whom Jesus died on the Cross. 

Dear Lord, I draw near to Your Cross to put on the love that flows from Your sacred wounds.  Amen.