Our Failure
By Mary Wilder Tileston

      The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.
      1 THESSALONIANS 3:12

      IF we love God, we know what loving is,
      For love is God's, He sent it to the earth,
      Half-human, half-divine, all glorious!--
      Half-human, half-divine, but wholly His;
      Not loving God, we know not love's true worth,
      We taste not the great gift He gave to us.
      MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN

      LET us see that whenever we have failed to be loving, we have also failed to be wise; that whenever we have been blind to our neighbors' interests, we have also been blind to our own; whenever we have hurt others, we have hurt ourselves still more. Let us, at this blessed Whitsuntide, ask forgiveness of God for all acts of malice and uncharitableness, blindness and hardness of heart; and pray for the spirit of true charity, which alone is true wisdom. And let us come to Holy Communion in charity with each other and with all; determined henceforth to feel for each other, and with each other; to put ourselves in our neighbors' places; to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts, so far as God shall give us that great grace; determined to make allowances for their mistakes and failings; to give and forgive, even as God gives and forgives, for ever; that so we may be indeed the children of our Father in heaven, whose name is Love.
      CHARLES KINGSLEY