These are the opening lines of our New Testament reading today: ‘We love, because he first loved us’. St Augustine commented in a homily: ‘For how should we love, except He had first loved us? By loving we became friends: but He loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and gave us the gift of loving Him. We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful’.

We can see this beauty in all sorts of ways: in nature, in people who love and are loved. Yet Isaiah said in the Servant Song: ‘He had no form or loveliness that we should desire Him’. His love was shown forth in total self-giving even to the cross, which stands as a magnificent testimony to the true and beauteous destiny of the human race, to love even unto death. It is a different kind of beauty, yet it is beauty nonetheless. May we know this true beauty of soul in total self-giving in whatever way God may show us, and may He bless you this day.