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Eric Heitzman's avatar

St Catherine of Siena has a beautiful derivation of the love of neighbor.

I wish I could find the source. I thought it was in her Dialogue but I couldn't find the exact reference.

God says to her "I ask you to love me with the same love with which I love you. But for me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved. Whatever love you have for me you owe me, so you love me not gratuitously but out of duty, while I love you not out of duty but gratuitously. So you cannot give me the kind of love I ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbors: so that you can do for them what you cannot do for me – that is, love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for any profit for yourself. And whatever you do for them I will consider done for me."

I love St Catherine for a hundred reasons.

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