Four Hundred Texts on Love 10

38.  If love is long-suffering and kind (cf. 1 Cor. 13:4), a man who is contentious and malicious clearly alienates himself from love. And he who is alienated from love is alienated from God, for God is love.

There are so many things we do by which we alienate ourselves from love. I doubt that most of us, when we do them, deliberately intend to alienate ourselves from God. And yet that is the inevitable result. If we thought before we acted that we would alienate ourselves from God, would we still do it?

This, I think, lies somewhere near the Christian practice of prayer. We believe that prayer is a direct mystical experience of God, whether we feel anything or not. In prayer, we train ourselves to be aware of God. And that is key, for only when we are aware can we choose to turn toward rather than away from God. And thus St. Paul urges us to pray without ceasing, that we not allow a moment to pass unaware of the presence of God.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.