Do you love me?
His Holiness Pope Shenouda reflects on Christ’s question to Peter: “Do you love me?” and presents it as a question God directs to every soul. The main intent is that God does not want only religious appearances, but a true sincere love from the heart.
Degrees of love
The talk explains that there are degrees in the person’s relationship with God: sometimes fear of punishment drives virtue, then the habit of practice, then loving virtue for its own sake, and the highest degree is that the person does everything out of love for God so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in him.
Signs of true love
Love appears in the heart before the form: prayer and worship are not enough if they are not born from love. Signs of love are: preoccupation of thought with God, longing for life with Christ, and that our actions come from love not merely from duty or appearance.
Practical exercises for love
His Holiness gives practical means to train in love: loving people (the poor, the sick, the orphans, the repentant sinner), keeping Christ’s commandments, giving generously, and offering what we have with love — examples like the widow who gave little with love and the child who offered what he had gladly.
Service as a practical proof
True service is not formalities or empty duties, but love for others for the glory of God. Whoever loves God tends his “sheep” within his sphere of responsibility — the family, the children, the servants — by raising them in the fear of the Lord.
A call to self-examination
The sermon ends with an invitation for each person to seek an honest answer: do we really love God? Have we emptied the heart of every opposing love? Do we think of God in our daily life and give Him a share of our time, money, and deeds?
Spiritual conclusion
What is required is not mere actions or appearances, but a heart full of God’s love that appears in our thoughts, words, and actions, so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in us and the image of God appears in our deeds.
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