From our New Testament reading today, from the First Letter of John: ‘Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love’.

St Augustine wrote: ‘For God is love. What more could be said, brethren? If nothing were said in praise of love throughout the pages of this epistle, if nothing whatever throughout the other pages of the Scriptures, and this one only thing were all we were told by the voice of the Spirit of God, “For Love is God”; nothing more ought we to require’.

The mark of the earliest Christians was their love for one another; may this same love transfigure and transform us into the likeness of Christ, and may God bless you this day.