We can ask: What keeps us united? Why are we united? What prompts us to encounter each other? Do you know what keeps us united? It’s the certainty of knowing that we have been loved with a profound love that we neither can nor want to keep quiet about; a love that challenges us to respond in the same way: with love. 2 Cor 5:14).
Wherever we may be and whatever we may do, we can always look up and say, Lord, teach me to love as you have loved us
You see, a love which unites is a love that does not overwhelm or oppress, cast aside or reduce to silence, humiliate or domineer. It is the love of the Lord, a daily, discreet and respectful love; a love that is free and freeing, a love that heals and raises up. The love of the Lord has to do more with raising up than knocking down, with reconciling than forbidding, with offering new chances than condemning, with the future than the past. It is the quiet love of a hand outstretched to serve, a commitment that draws no attention to itself.