Be love. Be in love, all the time. Love is not a feeling, it is a decision. Ask Christ for His Heart.
I have been "in love" and also "willed love" in my life. Love is an amazing experience. My own experience is that of mostly unrequited love, but that makes no difference in the long run. Love is a gift. It is a gift for the giver as much, if not more, than the receiver. So, unrequited love, although a suffering, is a good. One learns about one's self in love, whether answered or not. In fact, unanswered love is the love from the Cross.
One can be single and love. But, more than others, this takes creativity and persistence. One must look for opportunities to love. A single person must be pro-active in prayer and in serving others.
As God has not given me the physical strength to join the great nuns at Tyburn, this is my call.
I went to Tyburn to find Love, and He found me and sent me out. This is my cross and His, as He chose this for me. When Christ chooses our cross, He is offering His own to us. For many in this modern age of dysfunctional families and isolation, loneliness or at least, alone-ness, can be for many the Cross.
I do not think we have "many crosses" but one. And, for all of us, it is the same-suffering. I am reminded of St. Therese' "unfelt joy". There is a mystery to this awareness of God's Love but not feeling this consolation. It is deeper, it is the Love found in Faith.
Love means that one is not thinking of one's self, but others. Love means that the needs and even desires of others, as long as these are moral and good, can be met. Love is getting out of one's self.
Sometimes, all one can do is pray for another. That, too, is love. Persistent prayer is committed love.
Love is liberating and life changing.
Love is gratefulness and humility at the very thought of being love. Humility is the awareness that one does not deserve to be loved but is. And, with humility comes purity of heart.
For those of us who are more like Joan of Arc than Zelie Martin, love is an adventure which God directs and we follow like good soldiers. We cannot choose our personalities and talents, but God perfects these in His Own way and time.
But, I have loved and do love, and wish all who have not been fortunate enough to do so to experience love at least once and that once is the Love of God. I am concerned that too many young people are afraid to love or to be loved, really, and therefore, shield themselves from God.
Do not be afraid.
Love is in the will and the will controls the heart.
Willing is the key. One must be open to love. If one is open, love comes. If one is closed, it does not.
One must be willing to be hurt. That is not masochistic, that is reality. One forgives and loves even more in the forgiveness. Sometimes, love must begin in forgiveness, which is fertile soil for love. When one forgives, one dies to one's self, but one is, therefore, transformed and changed.
Love, which comes to us, is a Person, Who is God and He wants to come into the hearts, minds, souls of each man and woman.
He waits for us to be open. He will not force His Love upon us. Just as we cannot force someone to love us or even to accept our love, so too, God waits for us. He holds out His Heart to us every day, every hour, every minute, every second. What wondrous Love is this, states the song....as His Love suffers for us. The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus suffers in humility and vulnerability. Can we do anything less?
I call Christ the Vulnerable God.
In the Song of Songs, Love waits. From Chapter 2, DR:
I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and the harts of the, fields, that you stir not up, nor make the beloved to awake, till she please.
Say "placet" to God. He will do the rest.