Love of Our Neighbour

123. Wisdom enters by love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know when to be silent, when to suffer, and never to regard the sayings, doings, or lives of others.

124. See that you do not intermeddle in the affairs of other people, nor discuss them in your own thoughts ; for perhaps you will not be able to fulfil your own task.

125. Suspect no evil of your brother, for that takes away purity of heart.

126. Never listen to accounts of the frailties of others ; and if anyone should complain to you of an other, humbly ask him not to speak about him at all.

127. Do not shrink from trouble : though it may seem to you more than you can bear. Let all men find you compassionate.

128. No one merits love except for the virtue that he has ; and when love is so ordered, it is according to God, and in great freedom.

129. When the love and affection we give to the creature is purely spiritual and founded on God, the love of God grows with it ; and the more we remember the earthly love, the more we also remember God and desire Him : the one grows apace with the other.

130. When the love of the creature springs from sensual vice, or from a purely natural inclination, in proportion to its growth is the diminution of the love of God and forgetfulness of Him ; and from the recollection of the creature, remorse of conscience comes.

131. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit, saith our Saviour in His Gospel. So the love which grows out of sensuality ends in sensuality ; that which is of the spirit ends in the spirit of God, and makes it grow. This is the difference between these two loves, that men may distinguish between them.