Love Expressed In Action

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I like the quote “He wants love expressed in action" when describing Jesus' re-commissioning of Peter.

This line reminded me of the active love quote from Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. The quote is placed on the lips of Father Zosima. Father Zosima lives in the monastery but reaches out to the community. He comfortably uses his spiritual gifts. He is wise but he does not call his visitors to knowledge, he calls them to love. A woman comes to the monastery one day in need of help. She tells him that she has lost her faith and asks for a proof. Father Zosima tells her that faith cannot be proved but we can be convinced of it through love.

“there's no proving it, though you can be convinced of it by the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain."

He then goes on to tell her when she boldly claims to want to love others: "Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don't be frightened overmuch even at your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it -- at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.

This active love is central to what Father Zosima teaches and what he lives. I, like the church, too often want to love but we love in dreams and not in action. We do not like “love in action” because it is indeed “a harsh and dreadful thing”.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Jesus asks Peter to love in action. He also asks the same of us.