Theme
Witnesses on love
Loving someone to the end and carrying them in prayer — these witnesses know something about it.
A few words
Here we are, you and I, and I hope that a third is between us, Christ. There is no one now to make a noise, no one to break in on the talk of friends; into this solitude, so welcome to us, no voice and no tumult creeps.
We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.
What does it matter, Jesus, that I have no consolation in the world. You alone are enough for me.
Let me touch and handle the one my soul loves: all my life I have desired him, all my life I have hungered for him.
I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love, and this Soul is God by the condition of love.
We must speak to them with our hands before we speak to them with our lips.
All 70 witnesses on love
- Aelred de Rievaulx Praying two together, and finding that there were not two.
- Alice Meynell Prayer held inside a crowded life, and renunciation that does not put out tenderness.
- Angèle de Foligno Dispossession become encounter: as everything is taken away, discovering God present in all things.
- Anna Bartlett Warner The certainty of being loved, said in a child's words.
- Annalena Tonelli Following Christ in the poor, without title or safety net, when prayer becomes a life entirely given away.
- Benoît de Nursie “Some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Benedict made it a rule: every guest who arrives is received as Christ himself. We never welcome only the person we think we see, which is why hospitality is an act of faith before it is a courtesy.
- Bernard de Clairvaux The love of God as desire without measure.
- Bonaventure Letting knowledge become prayer, seeking God with mind and heart.
- Catherine de Gênes Pure love: to seek nothing for oneself in prayer, but God alone.
- Chiara Lubich Making unity itself a prayer, choosing God even in forsakenness.
- Chiara Luce Badano The trusting yes to God in suffering, and the heart that still loves when all is taken away.
- Dorothy Day Holding together daily prayer and the open table.
- Élisabeth de Hongrie Royalty that becomes service, charity that lowers the crown.
- Élisabeth de la Trinité The prayer of the interior: to seek God not far off but in the depths of oneself, and to abide there.
- Élisabeth Leseur Silent radiance: loving without preaching, and letting an offered life speak in one's stead.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning The certainty that nothing is small, and that God sometimes answers too fast.
- Elizabeth Prentiss The request to love more, repeated in the hollow of grief and of featureless days.
- Émilie Gamelin Letting grief open into charity, serving the poor with joy.
- Félicité Niyitegeka Refusing to be saved alone, and staying tender even in the farewell.
- Fiodor Dostoïevski Faith that has passed through doubt and bears its scars, without ceasing to choose Christ.
- Frédéric Ozanam Turning faith into concrete service, charity invented between equals.
- Gabriela Mistral Tenderness for those who are not one's own, and each day's work carried in prayer.
- Gemma Galgani The bare desire for God when he alone remains, the love that is enough for everything.
- Gertrude d'Helfta Prayer as friendship: to let oneself be wounded by love and answer the One who speaks to the heart.
- Guillaume de Saint-Thierry Love treated as an art, learned only from the one who gave it.
- Hadewijch d'Anvers The love of God lived as a demanding passion, not a quiet feeling.
- Hanna Chrzanowska Serving Christ in the body of the sick, making care a prayer.
- Henri Nouwen A spirituality of returning to the foundational identity of beloved child.
- Henriette Delille Faith that decides a life: to believe, to hope, to love, and to follow it through to the end.
- Herman d'Alaska Inhabited solitude: never being alone where God is, and beginning to love now, without waiting for tomorrow.
- Hillel l'Ancien Kindness held as the heart of the whole Law, and the gentle urgency of the present moment.
- Hugues de Saint-Victor Order and love of study, patient formation of the mind, discipline of attention as a spiritual path. Everything he touches becomes a staircase toward God.
- Irmã Dulce Concrete love that begins with almost nothing, and the certainty that loving can change the world.
- Isabelle de Villena Prayer given back to the women who already carried it, and were no longer heard.
- Jan van Ruusbroec Mystical depth that refuses to stay private, writing in the common tongue so contemplation belongs to everyone, union with God that flows back out into action.
- Jean de Dieu Doing good without keeping count, because the mercy one has received is not counted either.
- Jean de Shanghai et San Francisco Ceaseless prayer and charity without borders, kept intact under slander.
- Jean Donovan Staying with the little ones when the reasonable thing would be to leave.
- Julienne de Norwich Trust against all evidence: believing, from the depth of night, that love will have the last word.
- Laura Montoya Seeking God where he has no shrine: love knows how to find him wherever he gives himself.
- Laura Vicuña The hidden gift of oneself for the salvation of those one loves.
- Louise de Marillac Concrete service of the poor as a place of encounter with God, and gentleness toward oneself in times of anxiety.
- Lutgarde d'Aywières The exchange of hearts: giving one's own, receiving another's.
- Marcel Van The little way of love, when life is reduced to almost nothing.
- Marguerite Porete Silence before those who judge, and a stripping-away carried to the point of asking for nothing.
- Marguerite-Marie Alacoque The discovery that the heart of God loves first, and that one can answer that love in the most ordinary life.
- Mariam Baouardy Letting the Spirit lift you like a little nothing: the simplicity that asks for light before acting.
- Marie Skobtsova Finding God in the face of the other: a hospitality that makes every open table a holy place.
- Marie-Madeleine de Pazzi Thirst for the Love that is neither loved nor known, the fire of the Spirit that purifies.
- Martin de Porres Loving without making distinctions, putting compassion before all.
- Mary McLeod Bethune Bequeathing what one did not receive, so that others may have it.
- Maxime le Confesseur Love as the summit of the spiritual life, higher than all knowledge.
- Mechthilde de Magdebourg Love as a current that carries the soul, and the trust to let oneself be plunged into it.
- Mélanie la Jeune Letting go of possessions in order to become free again; the marriage bond widened into brotherhood.
- Nicolas Cabasilas The interior life made possible without leaving one's trade or changing one's state.
- Pierre Claver Serving with one's hands before speaking, drawing near to the suffering body.
- Pierre Toussaint The quiet, stubborn charity of daily life, working in order to be able to give.
- Porphyrios de Kavsokalyvia The way of love rather than of anxious effort, and God sought as one loves.
- Rabbi Akiva To love God to the last breath, and to hold every person as beloved.
- Raymond Lulle The desire for God lived as burning love, even in the meeting with the other.
- Sandra Sabattini The holiness of ordinary youth, and prayer become simple conversation with God.
- Scholastique Prayer that obtains more by love than by force, the boldness of trust.
- Serge de Radonège Seeking God in solitude, serving unity through humility.
- Stanley Rother The shepherd who does not flee: staying with one's own when danger comes.
- Stephen Kim Sou-hwan Physical courage placed between power and the vulnerable, a church that became sanctuary in fact and not just in name, authority used to shield rather than to command.
- Thérèse de Lisieux Love as vocation. Sanctity at the height of a child.
- Thérèse des Andes Joy as witness: a God real enough to make one happy, even behind a grille.
- Véronique Giuliani Love that lets itself be found at the end of the night, and the humble obedience that tells what it would rather have hidden.
- Vincent de Paul Loving God by the sweat of one's arms, seeing in the poor one's master.
- Wanda Błeńska Love that touches what the world dares not touch, and a profession practiced as a gift of self.