Love – Thomas Merton

I closed today’s sermon (based on John 13:31-35) with these two quotes from Thomas Merton.

…love is not just something that happens to you: it is a certain special way of being alive. Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life…. We do not become fully human until we give ourselves to each other in love. And this must not be confined only to sexual fulfillment: it embraces everything in the human person—the capacity for self-giving, for sharing, for creativity, for mutual care, for spiritual concern. Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another. — Love and Living, p. 27