“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (John 15:10)

Loving and remaining in love requires more action than words. It is a dynamic of the heart that we deploy from within. It is a way of being and being with others and with the Lord, which goes far beyond the horizon of mere words. Remaining in love does not mean being “trapped” by commandments and formulas, but nurturing our relationship with the Good News of the Gospel. Remaining in love is a response to the grateful acknowledgment of a love first received that is free of charge and not an advanced payment to obtain love in return.

We are invited to live in love and remain in it, recognizing that it is the Lord who has chosen us. It is not our merits that have turned the gaze of the Lord towards us but his unconditional and gratuitous love that is revealed to us in the small details of our daily lives.

In that love that is given to us without conditions and without us having done anything to deserve it, we are invited to remain. Through him we are invited to share his table, to feed on his word and participate in his life. This is not an obligation but a free invitation. That is why our response should not be a fulfillment but a free decision, a free response to love who first loved us.

Therefore, to remain in love is to choose the Lord, to want to live life in abundance with what he gives us in each event of our life, not as an obligation or to deserve any reward, but as a response to his unconditional love.

• Bettina Raed
  International Co-Coordinator of Click to Pray