"My life is worth living if I can learn to transform everything that happens to me into love, in imitation of Jesus: because love is for living.
"When I meet a brother of mine who has caused me great pain in the past by viciously calumniating me, I shall love him, and in loving him I shall transform the evil done to me into good: because love is for living.
"When I have to live with people who do not see things the same way I see them, who say they are enemies of my faith, I shall love them, and in loving them I shall sow the seeds of future dialogue in my heart and theirs: because love is for living.
"When I go into a shop to buy something for myself — clothes, food, or whatever it may be — I shall think of my brothers and sisters who are poorer than I am, of the hungry and the naked, and I shall use this thought to govern my purchases, trying out of love to be tight with myself and generous with them: because love is for living.
"When I see time's destructive traces in my body and the approach of old age, I shall try to love even more in order to transform the coldest season of life into a total gift of myself in preparation for the imminent holocaust: because love is for living.
"When I see the evening of my life, or, on the pavement in a car accident, in the agony of a fatal illness, in the ward of a geriatric hospital, feel the end coming, I shall reach out again for love, striving to accept in joy whatever fate God has had in store for me: because love is for living.
"Yes, love is God in me, and if I am in love I am in God, that is, in life, in grace: a sharer in God's being. . . .
"If charity is God in me, why look for God any further than myself?
"And if God is in me as love, why do I change or disfigure God's face with acts or values which are not love?"
