Merry Christmas! Love is born.
Read: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 1 Corinthians 13:4–8
Reflect: Living in the Theological Virtue of Love. Love or Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. Jesus makes charity the new commandment and it is superior to all virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: “So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.” Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.
By charity, we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. Charity, the form of all the virtues, “binds everything together in perfect harmony”
Colossians 3:14
Respond: We love because you loved us first Lord. Thank you for your birth, for being fully human and divine, to show us the way to love. Help me love you above all things with my whole heart and soul, because you are all good and worthy of all love. Help me love my neighbor as myself for your love. Help me forgive all who have injured me, and ask pardon for all whom I have injured.
Smitten With Goodness 