This year, dear Mother, God has given me the grace to understand what charity is; I understood it before, it is true, but in an imperfect way. I had never fathomed the meaning of these words of Jesus: “The second commandment is like the first: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
I applied myself especially to loving God, and it is in loving Him that I understood my love was not to be expressed only in words, for: “It is not those who say: ‘Lord, Lord!’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven.” Jesus has revealed this will several times or I should say on almost every page of His Gospel.
But at the Last Supper, when He knew the hearts of His disciples were burning with a more ardent love for Him who had just given Himself to them in the unspeakable mystery of His Eucharist, this sweet Savior wished to give them a new commandment. He said to them with inexpressible tenderness: “A new commandment I give you that you love one another: that as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

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