I want to love, Lord, All my being is desire; My arms thrash about, and I can seize on no object for my love. I live, and no one is there to share my life. Where does this love come from? I want to love, Lord, Here, this evening, Lord, is all my love. ********** Listen, son, Walk by the side of your love so new, as one follows a brook to find its source, and, at the very end, deep within you, in the infinite mystery of your troubled soul, you will meet me. For I call myself Love, son, It is I who made you to love, You must wait for her coming. She is approaching. You are approaching. You will recognize each other, And you seek each other, in the night, Keep yourself for her, son, I shall keep you for one another, Believe me, it’s a long apprenticeship, learning to love, Loving is always leaving oneself to go towards others. ******** Lord, help me to forget myself for others, my brothers,
I need to love.
My heart,
My body,
yearn in the night towards an unknown one to love.
I am alone and want to be two.
I speak, and no one is there to listen.
Why be so rich and have no one to enrich?
Where is it going?
I need to love.
Stop,
and make, silently, a long pilgrimage to the bottom of your heart.
And from the beginning I have been nothing but Love,
And Love is in you.
To love eternally;
And your love will pass through another self of yours - it is she that you seek;
Set your mind at rest; she is on your way, on the way since the beginning, the way of my love.
For I’ve made her body for you, I’ve made yours for her.
I’ve made your heart for her, I’ve made hers for you.
In ‘my night,’ which will become Light if you trust me.
As she is keeping herself for you.
And, since you hunger for love, I’ve put on your way all your brothers to love.
And there are not several kinds of love:
That in giving myself I may teach myself to love.
— Michel Quoist, “Prayers of Life”
