June 14

hy are we so little concerned with seeking out opportunities for helping one another, so that we might strengthen one another in those things where we see that it is more necessary and mutually bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters? The apostle exhorts us to do this when he says: Help carry one another's burdens; in that way you will fulfill the law of Christ. And elsewhere he says: Bear with one another lovingly. This is the very law of Christ.

Every kind of life which allows a person to give oneself more sincerely to the love of God, and through it to the love of neighbor — no matter what its dress or customs may be — is thus more pleasing to God. It is for love that we should do or not do everything, change or not change it. Love is the principle through which and the end toward which it is fitting for everything to be directed. There is no fault in anything which is genuinely done for love and in accord with the spirit of love. May this love be granted us by the Lord whom we cannot please without love and without whom we can do nothing, the One who lives and reigns as God for ever.

From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.

HTML text prepared by David P. Steelman