November 29, 2020, James 2:1-13, ISSL Reflections, Post 3

Here is this week’s Scripture from the Common English Bible translation –
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+2%3A1-13&version=CEB

VII.
The Scriptures we have read during the last months have all, one way or another, focused on how we love, or don’t love, one another. How we put into practice Christian love, concern and value for one another.

The focus began with the reflections on Joseph’s life ( https://lectio.discipleswalk.org/september-6-genesis-372-11-23-24a-28-issl-reflections/ ) and continued to this week’s passage.

Do any of the passages draw you to rereading them today?

VIII.
Several days a week I receive a quote from the writings for Frederick Buechner in my inbox. Last week these words on “love” came my way –

“THE LOVE FOR equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

“The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

“The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

“And then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.”

-Originally published in The Magnificent Defeat

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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