Love in Action

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Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in sight of all. People will give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as if on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude. ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

God is the Friend of silence

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I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence – we need to listen to God because it’s not what we say but what he says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul – as blood is to the body, prayer is to the soul – and it brings you closer to God. It also gives you a clean and pure heart. A clean heart can see God, can speak to God, and can see the love of God in others. ~Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, A Simple Path

Growing in the Love of God

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There is a legend about a woman who prayed to God for patience. In answer, she received nothing but trouble. She then said to the Lord, “I did not pray for trouble, I prayed for patience.” The Lord answered her, “How else will you learn patience, or even know you have it?” Growing in the love of God with its concomitant joy and peace is possible only as we let that love be tested by the hard things of life, and so the love bears the fruit of even-tempered patience, kindness, and gentleness. ~Anna Mow, Say Yes to Life