He certainly is. But rather than giving you an experience of my own, I would love for everyone in the world to read Part I of one Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical letters, and ask all young Catholic Londoners to come to an event that I'm running as part of the youth team at Hounslow Parish on 12th Feb.
You can find the encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est by clicking here!
You can then find the details of our LOVE themed event in February by clicking here!
If anything strikes you about the encyclical letter, let me know... I'm always interested to hear what others think! For me, Chapters 12 onwards sing volumes - and if you don't have time to read the whole encyclical, then at least read from Chapter 12 onwards of Part I !
Just for reasons of plugging a really good read, the encyclical references Eros and Agape - it is good for us to attempt to know and understand the differences, even if we might not consciously feel the differences to the depths of our being just yet! But if you are interested in reading more about these types of love put into context of application, then an interesting book to read is Paulo Coelho's 'The Pilgrimage'.
I'd also like to remind my friends of the word 'compassion', used in today's scripture programme. Compassion is something God has a lot of. He doesn't have sympathy. He has compassion. The difference between sympathy and compassion is that sympathy is understanding someone's need, whereas compassion is doing something about that need. In my silent living room, I hum the taize chant 'Bless the Lord my Soul'.
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