Did you notice? This is now one of the commandments: “Love one another as I love you.”
The first Letter of John says, “We love because he first loved us.” (4:9) The initiative lies with Jesus. Directing that same love toward others is our response.
The Trappist monk and author, Thomas Merton, said that Christian love doesn’t happen because I simply make an act of the will to love others. The key, he said is faith. I have to believe – truly believe -- that I am loved by God. If I believe that, the rest follows.
To put it another way, the origin of my love for others is God: The Father loves the Son…and the Son loves me…and I love others.
That’s a pretty good source – God.
It really does come down to faith: The Lord loves me. If I believe that, then the rest follows.
Do I believe it?
Mary Fields has been called one of the toughest women ever to work in a convent.
Born a slave in Tennessee on this date in 1932, Mary gained her freedom after the Civil War, and moved to Mississippi where she worked on a steamboat.
She had been a childhood friend of an Ursiline Sister who was assigned to minister to Indians in Montana and became very ill. Mary went there to nurse her friend back to health. She stayed on and helped build the mission school. She also drove the stagecoach that brought people from the train station to the convent.
Despite their best efforts, the nuns never managed to convert Mary Fields. She preferred to drink, swear, fight and smoke cigars with the men who worked at the convent.
Mary Fields never married. The nuns were her family. But, when the bishop received complaints about Mary’s unconventional ways, he made her leave the convent.
The nuns helped Mary open a restaurant, but it struggled to survive since she so often gave free meals to the needy. She eventually found work as a U. S. mail coach driver. She died in 1914 and is buried in Cascade, Montana, where her grave is marked by a simple cross.
In her later years, Mary Fields would baby sit for local children, and then spend her earnings on treats for them…including a little boy who would grow up and become known as Gary Cooper.