“To love one another, to help one another”
How very insistent the Apostle Saint John was in preaching the mandatum novum, the new commandment that we should love one another. I would fall on my knees, without putting on any act but this is what my heart dictates and ask you, for the love of God, to love one another, to help one another, to lend one another a hand, to know how to forgive one another. And so, reject all pride, be compassionate, show charity; help each other with prayer and sincere friendship. (The Forge, 454)
If the return of a son who had betrayed him is enough for him to prepare a banquet, what will he have in store for us, who have tried to remain always at his side?
Far be it from us, therefore, to remember who has offended us or the humiliations we have endured — no matter how unjust, uncivil or unmannerly they may have been — because it would not …