This is my commandment:
love one another as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this,
than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
(Jesus in John 15:12-13)
One of Dorothy Day’s favourite passages from world literature occurs in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, where the old Father Zossima points out to Madame Hohlokov that her supposed crisis of faith is
really a crisis of love:
“For love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all.
… But active love is labour and fortitude,
and for some people too, perhaps a complete science.”
“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred.
Love them and forgive them any way!
If you are kind and loving, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind to them anyway!
…. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway!
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway!”
St Teresa of Calcutta
(from the wall hanging in Mother Teresa’s office)