“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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