I said a few minutes ago that Saint Paul's justly famous thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians is perhaps our chief source when we set about to learn just what love is, and set about to follow more closely what he has to say, and I added that what he says is worth a whole lifetime of careful study and meditation. I think there is no better way of concluding these remarks than by citing that chapter at some length. He begins, Saint Paul does, by saying If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
These are the words of that great Apostle who loved Jesus, it has been said, loved him with an almost savage love. This must be our ideal, the ideal of all of us, whether monks or not. This love must characterize us together, and each of us individually. And we must not be tricked into thinking we can attain to God in any other way.