THE SCHOOL OF LOVE
[continued from yesterday]
...Let us, then, watch love in action; above all, let us watch it as it beats against the bars of its prison within our own hearts.
For it is there most of all, perhaps there only, that we can read it securely for ourselves, and according to the measure of our own capacity, without any fear of being misled, without any danger of getting out of our depth. "The kingdom of God," said our Lord, "is within you;" and the kingdom of God is nothing if not the kingdom of Love.
What, then, do I understand by a loving nature, the good ground on which the seed of love is likely to bear most abundant fruit?
I understand, first of all, a nature that is easily led to think little of itself.
It is a nature which, as it were, is easily distracted from itself by appreciation and admiration of that which it finds around it and in others.
Outside itself it is for ever discovering matter of interest, something worth attention. so that to itself it forgets to give much thought.
Such a trait is common in children, and we love them for it. To them, until they are spoilt, all the world is new and wonderful; themselves they have not yet discovered.
We see it in great poets and great artists. Love of that which inspires them is their life; it makes them unlike other men, act unlike other men, and the common human nature that is in us all makes us claim for them forgiveness for much excess because we know they have loved much.
[continued tomorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918
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