Is your love for your spouse, parents, or children genuine? Almost everyone would automatically answer "Yes." Do you believe that your family members and friends genuinely love you? Early in their lives, most people automatically answer "Yes."
Over the years, however, we usually are forced to conclude that some people's "love" for us was not genuine. This makes us wonder if we will be sadly disappointed in other people's "love" for us. At some point in our lives, we suspect that even we ourselves have not been totally genuine in our love. Others are surprised that we haven't noticed it earlier.
Why not find out about "genuine love" now? Has your love been preceded by being purified through obedience to the truth? (1 Pt 1:22) If not, it may not be genuine. Is your love based on faith, virtue, discernment, self-control, perseverance, piety, and care for your brothers and sisters? (2 Pt 1:5-7) If not, your love may not be genuine.
Genuine love is humanly impossible, always accessible by God's grace, and the culminating grace of a great series of graces. Love genuinely.
| PRAYER: | Father, send the Holy Spirit of love to teach me to love (see Rm 5:5). |
| PROMISE: | "Realize that you were delivered from the futile way of life your fathers handed on to you, not by any diminishable sum of silver or gold, but by Christ's blood beyond all price." –1 Pt 1:18-19 |
| PRAISE: | Pope St. Paul VI became the first pope to travel to other continents, making papal visits to Asia, Africa, and North and South America. |
Reprinted with permission from Presentation Ministries, a lay association of the Catholic Church that focuses on evangelization and discipleship through Bible teaching, daily Mass, the charisms of the Holy Spirit, and Small Christian Community. Their ministries include:
· One Bread, One Body
· Daily Bread Radio Program
· Annual Bible Institute
· Discipleship Retreats
· Guadalupe Bible College