Christ needs you, and calls you to help millions of our fellow men to be truly human and to work out their salvation. Live with these noble ideals in your soul....Open your heart to Christ, to the law of love, without placing conditions on your availability, without fear of receiving noncommittal replies, because love and friendship do not vanish over the horizon. [JPII Address in Javier, 6 Nov. '82] They always main their plentitude, for love does not grow old.

St. Thomas teaches that we love someone when we desire the good of that person. If, on the other hand, we try to take advantage of the one concerned, either because it gives us pleasure or because he is of use to us, then properly speaking, we don't love that person: whatever we want, it is not his good. When we love, we desire what is the best for the other; our whole person is directed to this love, independently of our likes or dislikes or moods: the payment and the price of love is to receive more love. [St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, 9, 7]

In Conversation with God, Vol. 3 Twelfth Week, Friday