Sunday, April 21, 2013

Quote of the Day (St. Catherine of Siena, Channeling God’s Charge to Man on How to Love)



“I charge you to love me in the same love that I have loved you.  You cannot do this for me, because I have loved you without being loved.  Every love that you have for me is a love that comes from duty and not from graciousness, because you ought to do it.  I love you from graciousness and not from duty.  This is why you cannot give me the love that I am requesting of you.  And therefore I have put you in the midst of your neighbor, so that you can do for him what you cannot do for me, that is, to love him without any self-interest from graciousness and without looking for any benefit.  And what you do for him I consider as done for me.”—St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), The Dialogue, excerpted in The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, edited by Bernard McGinn (2006)

The image accompanying this post is an oil-on-canvass painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, St. Catherine of Siena.

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