You don’t even have to try to love others. It’s impossible to try, to force yourself to love someone, to force yourself to love yourself. It isn’t an act of the will. We are impelled by the very nature of the experience of being loved to become loving. It reveals to us our true nature and our true potential.
But of course, we must not limit this experience of God’s love for us just to the emotions, just to what we feel; or even to the mind, our ideas of God. It is deeper than both, this experience of the love of God flooding the heart. It is deeper than the mind and deeper than the emotions. It opens us up to the fundamental relationship of our being, the deepest identity we have. And it’s in this relationship with God that all our other relationships, including even our relationship with ourselves, are rooted. What can be deeper than our relationship with ourselves? What is deeper is our relationship with God, the source of our being.
( Aspects of Love 3 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
