As He Loved Us

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It is for us to love Christ as he loved us. In this he left us an example so that we might follow in his steps. This is why he says: “Set me as a seal upon your arm.” It is as if he said: “Love me as I love you. Have me in your mind, your memory, your desire, your yearning, your sighing and your sobbing. Remember how I made you, how I put you before all other creatures, how I ennobled you with such dignity, how I crowned you with glory and honor, how I made you only a little less than the angels, how I subjected all things under your feet. Remember, too, not only the many things I made for you, but what harsh and undeserved things I endured for you... If you love me, show me that you love me! Love me in deed and in truth, not with the word and the tongue... Set me as a seal upon your heart that you may love me with all your strength.”

Take from me, O Lord, my heart of stone. Take away my hardened heart...; give me a new heart, a heart of flesh, a pure heart! You who purify the heart, you who love the pure heart, possess my heart and dwell within it. 

Lines from our Cistercian father, Baldwin of Ford (+c.1190), Tractate 10.

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