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He loves because He is
We had a good time last night - prayed the whole Evening Office together. The reading was from Romans 12 (the text that underlies our Rule - still in progress), on letting your love be sincere and anticipating one another in showing respect, etc. Very good and challenging stuff. I also had earlier found a great Thomas Merton quote which happened to fit well as we were talking. I'll share that here for those who didn't get to hear it.
"One of the keys to real religious experience is the shattering realization that no matter how hateful we are to ourselves, we are not hateful to God. This realization helps us to understand the difference between our love and His. Our love is a need, His is a gift. We need to see good in ourselves in order to love ourselves. He does not. He loves us not because we are good, but because He is. But as long as we worship a God who is only a projection of ourselves, we fear a tremendous and insatiable power who needs to see goodness in us and who, for all the infinite clarity of His vision finds nothing but evil, and therefore insists upon revenge."
| posted by + Alan | 9:36 AM |
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