December 1985

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all. (1 Thess. 3:12).

We need to put ourselves in the situation and spiritual outlook of the author of these words if we are to grasp all the richness of this Word of Life. St. Paul had heard that persecution had broken out against the community at Thessalonica. The community there was a newly born one that was full of drive and life, so it needed support.

Rightly the Apostle feared that the life of the young community might be suffocated by the storm. While he would have liked to go to them in person, serious external obstacles prevented him from doing so. He therefore turned to the Lord, begging him to direct circumstances in such a way as to allow him to visit Thessalonica again, and begging him to help the community to grow in mutual love.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all.

These words, in appearance so simple, reveal the idea that in mutual love all the Christian life is summed up. At the same time, we can discover in these words that mutual love is the most effective means of sustaining, strengthening and refreshing the soul in order to stand up to persecutions and all the external and internal difficulties which may threaten it.

Nor is it difficult to find the reason for this being so. Mutual love sets in movement and potentialises all the supernatural energies that have been deposited in us by the Holy Spirit on the day we were baptised. Mutual love mobilises faith, encouraging us to always see Jesus in our brother. It mobilises hope, helping us to begin all over again after any failure. Mutual love gets all the aspects of love of our neighbour moving: humility, meekness, patience, mercy, purity, poverty etc. Mutual love above all helps us to grow in love for the cross of Jesus, because it continually demands that we renounce ourselves so as to identify ourselves with our brother.

All this assures us of an even more living light, and an ever closer union with the Risen Jesus and his power, who is present in our midst.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all.

The second thought which comes from reading this Word is that mutual love is not a fact that can be taken for granted in advance. Mutual love must grow more and more in us, it is a reality which we are called to build day by day.

We know that our selfishness infiltrates everywhere, inspiring us always to choose what is most convenient for us. However, we are not called to love according to the measure of our mediocrity. We must love with the measure of Jesus' love, which is an unmeasured love, a love without our placing any limits on it.

The Apostle is telling us that this love should just grow but it should abound and become more and more able to overcome the understandable forms of resistance we have within us.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all.

The third point which stands out is how the Lord gives each of us special guidance in order to help us grow in mutual love, and we must respond to his guidance and live up to it.

The Lord has called us to the Christian life. Given that he loves us immensely, we can be sure that he will do everything to help this life to grow and develop more and more in us. He will do this not only guaranteeing us his grace, but also by arranging circumstances around us in such away as to provide us with ever more frequent opportunities for growing in mutual love.

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all.

How, therefore, should we live this Word of Life? We should take advantage of all the opportunities that we are given each day, and each moment, to live mutual love. For example, have we ever asked ourselves why a particular colleague has been placed next to us at work, or why a fellow pupil has been put next to us at school, or why a particular person meets us in a community or association we belong to? Have we asked ourselves why a particular person has been put in authority over us, or why we find ourselves in a particular situation, or face to face with some social problems? If we learn how to read all these situations in the light of our Christian vocation we will soon find an answer.

Besides, countless times we have experienced the effects which mutual love produces in us. Each effort we make to come out of ourselves and to go towards our brothers and sisters is a step forward in our growth as Christians. Each act of true love that we perform for a neighbour transforms us deeply, makes us become like new. Mutual love opens out our horizons, our soul grows and is strengthened, and our taste for the life of grace and the teaching of Jesus is refined.

All those who place reciprocal love as taught by Jesus as the foundation of their life and remain faithful to this, are destined to gather many fruits in their life. Isn't it this that we Christians should live for?

Chiara Lubich