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PortuguêsDoing everything with love
When mutual love is lived out by peoples and communities, it is a sign of hope for all humanity and a balm for the divisions that always threaten us.
Carlos Díaz, a contemporary Spanish philosopher says, "Loving means that the beloved is created by the lover; the beloved becomes precious, laudable and deserving of love that is is freely given and far greater than is required. The power and capacity to love spring up within the beloved.”
A renewed awareness of this aspect of life enables us to open up to others without fear, to understand their needs and to stand alongside them, sharing material and spiritual resources.
Let us look at the actions of people like Jesus, Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer or Mother Teresa. They were always the first to give of themselves. They opposed a selfish instinct to hoard with generosity, they did not focus upon themselves but gave attention to others and they replaced the desire to possess much with an attitude of generosity. How much we give is not important: what matters is how we give, how much love we put into even the smallest thing we do for another person.
Chiara Lubich writes, "Love is essential, because it knows how to approach others even if all we have to offer is our availability to listen or to serve. How important ... it is to try to ‘be love’ beside each person. It is the most direct way to enter their hearts and raise their spirits."
This Idea teaches us to approach others with respect, transparency and creativity, making room for their best aspirations, so that each person can make a contribution to the common good. It helps us to value all the practical aspects of daily life: "... from household tasks, work in industrial units or on the land, duties in an office or school, to civil, religious and political responsibilities we may undertake. Everything can be transformed into attentive and caring service.”
A group of young people in Buea, southwest Cameroon, organized a collection of goods and funds to help those internally displaced by the ongoing war. They visited a man who had lost an arm while fleeing from his home. Living with this disability was extremely challenging and had a serious impact upon his life. The visits of those young people made him experience great joy and enabled him to overcome those times of discouragement that always oppressed him, so much so that he expressed, as Regina recounts, his innermost feelings in these words, "Through your concrete help, I felt a great love that gives me hope today to move forward with greater courage." This man's words gave even more impetus and vitality to the action that the young people had undertaken, in the knowledge, as Marita adds, that "nothing is too small if done with love."
Let us continue our commitment today knowing that it is love that moves the world, and it is essential for every human being. Let us try it!
THE IDEA OF THE MONTH, based on the Word of Life of the Focolare Movement, was born in Uruguay as part of the dialogue between people of different convictions, whose motto is "building dialogue". The purpose of this publication is to help promote the ideal of universal fraternity. The IDEA OF THE MONTH is currently translated into 12 languages and distributed in more than 25 countries
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