Agape

I have been intending to write about the call to Agape love, and my recent experiences of it for sometime. However, after reflecting on it, I have decided instead just to post one of the most moving and meaningful prayers I have ever read. For those of you who have been the givers of Agape love to me recently, you will know who you are--the estranged who have been reconciled, the closest ones who have endured with me the difficulties of the previous year, and so on. For all of us, I hope it is a meaningful reminder of our distinctive obligation as human persons to seek peace and love in all that we do.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-Saint Francis of Assisi