How did I love?
Matthew offers us a classic description of the Day of Final Reckoning: the Son of God sits on a throne and like a shepherd separates the goats from the sheep. At that moment the great question for human beings will not be: “How did I live?” but rather: “How did I love?”
The final test of all quests for salvation will be Love. No account will be taken of what we did, what we believed in, what we achieved. None of this will be asked of us. What we will be asked is how we loved our neighbor. The mistakes we have made will not even be remembered. We will be judged for the good we have failed to do. Because keeping Love locked up within ourselves is to go against the spirit of God, it proves that we never knew Him, that He loved us in vain, and that His Son died to no avail.”
From Paulo Coelho's story of Manuel in Warrior of the Light
www.warriorofthelight.com
The final test of all quests for salvation will be Love. No account will be taken of what we did, what we believed in, what we achieved. None of this will be asked of us. What we will be asked is how we loved our neighbor. The mistakes we have made will not even be remembered. We will be judged for the good we have failed to do. Because keeping Love locked up within ourselves is to go against the spirit of God, it proves that we never knew Him, that He loved us in vain, and that His Son died to no avail.”
From Paulo Coelho's story of Manuel in Warrior of the Light
www.warriorofthelight.com
posted by meg @ 3:33 PM
3 Comments:
At 7:52 AM,
bluwhisper said…
I don't know if I'm just a crabby nay-sayer, but I don't know if I buy that. Perhaps I've just sympathized with too many liberation theologists.
I think it can be dangerous to tell people that it doesn't matter what they do, only what they feel. I can understand the appeal, particularly for wealthy white Americans, that it doesn't matter if they fail to help people in other nations or people in their own country as long as they love.
I don't think that God's grace will be given to us based on empirically demonstrated evidence of our good works, but I do believe it's dangerous to tell people that God doesn't care if we don't try to act on our love in this world.
At 9:49 AM,
bluwhisper said…
I probably came off harsher than I meant, especially since your quotation was somewhat out of context.
Let me just summarize my opinion in this manner: Love and Sympathy are neccessary but not sufficient. They are the first step. It is not enough to feel love or sympathy for our fellow human beings and then pat ourselves on the back for how caring and good we are, assured of our heavenly salvation. Too many people stop at that. Real love should go further.
Anyway, the Dali Lama never fails to intrigue me.
At 12:30 PM,
meg said…
I think Paulo Coelho would agree that "real love should go further" as you said because "keeping Love locked up within ourselves is to go against the spirit of God."
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