Meditation for June 18, I Can Always Love

When the glass painter, Claudius Lavergne, went to Italy to per­fect his education in art, he was twenty years old and had known more than one difficulty. He took with him a little book, The Imitation of Christ. On the flyleaf of the book he wrote these words to explain what help he expected from the slender volume: "When men turn against me, I can always love."

Quotations credited as famous are frequently cited, but none is more beautiful than this one. Let tribulations come, if they will, I can always love. A few lines suffice to move me to yield my heart completely - a word from the Gospel, a psalm verse, a chap­ter of the Imitation - a drop of tonic as it were - calm and peace are soon restored; love of God and of neighbor are either possible again or grow more fervent.

It is a good idea for me to keep a small but personal selection of thoughts or holy passages to which I like to revert at difficult moments. The heart is so easily crushed! At such moments how difficult it is not to withdraw into self and forget the great horizons.

Whatever may be the circumstances or persons who cause me to suffer, I can always love. I must remember that. I will construct for myself in advance, an arsenal where I can hastily withdraw to strengthen myself on days when I might be more than usually tempted to love no more.

"Whom do you consider the happiest person?" asked King Charles IX of the poet Le Tasse.

"The good God."

"Yes, but the happiest of human beings?"

"He who most closely resembles the good God."

"But God is love, therefore, he who loves the most is the happiest."

My God, let me learn of You how to love!
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)