“We devote our daily life to God, and to
serving our neighbors as images of God”
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| ("Holy Trinity" Andrej Rublev via Wikimedia Commons) |
- I will seek the image of God in each and every person; I will treat them as fully worthy of the good I desire for myself.
The foundation for loving our
neighbor (not to mention our enemy) is the conviction that they bear the very image
of God and even have a calling from this God who loves them unceasingly.
Trappist monk Thomas Merton writes clearly, “[A person] cannot be at peace with
himself or with God unless he is trying to love others with a love that is not
merely his but God’s own love.” Merton offers great insight into today’s vow in
the following two paragraphs from, No Man Is an
Island:
“It is clear, then, that to love others well
we must first love the truth. And since love is a matter of practical and
concrete human relations, the truth we must love when we love our [sisters and]
brothers is not mere abstract speculation: it is the moral truth that is to be
embodied and given life in our own destiny and theirs. This truth is more than the
cold perception of an obligation, flowing from moral precepts. The truth we
must love in loving our brothers is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are
willed for them by the love of God. One who really loves another is not merely
moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this
world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my
[sister], I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God’s love for [her]. I
must be moved not only by human sympathy but by that divine sympathy that is
revealed to us in Jesus and which enriches our own lives by the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit in our hearts.”
