August 21, 2022
In a family so much love is lavished on the new-born first child, and you hear them saying that’s the end of freedom now for a good few years.
Or the grandchildren come and there’s the babysitting. Life deepens love and narrows our freedom.
Jesus says elsewhere that love is the door to eternal life. In laying down life for a friend, the cross was a narrow door.
Real love means little things a lot of the time, and with God it means time now and then dedicated to prayer and to worship, as well as loving our neighbour.
Love demands a lot as well as giving a lot. With the people we most love, we are most vulnerable and they can bring the worst and the best out in us.
The sick child, the elderly in the family, those in prison or in a difficult marriage call on our love, as does a husband or wife needing a lot of care in illness or old age. There is a special love shown by volunteers in our country and the developing world. The grandchild who is isolated and lonely calls too on our love. This is the world of love, the only world worth sacrificing anything for.
The condition for entering is not where you come from, whether you are first or last, whether you wear the right clothes or even turn up on time – the condition is that, in the way of the living God, you hear the word of God daily and live by it faithfully.
Lord,
may your will of love
be done on Earth..
