Service<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm going to step away from the Divine Office for a moment, and talk about something else. The interior life is a life of learning to love and be loved by\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2014\/01\/service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Service\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm going to step away from the Divine Office for a moment, and talk about something else. 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{"id":993,"date":"2014-01-05T06:28:39","date_gmt":"2014-01-05T11:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=993"},"modified":"2014-01-02T13:31:08","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T18:31:08","slug":"service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2014\/01\/service\/","title":{"rendered":"Service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"Boots\"$ <\/a> I\u2019m going to step away from the Divine Office<\/a> for a moment, and talk about something else.<\/p>\n

The interior life is a life of learning to love and be loved by God. After all, we are supposed to love Him with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. This makes the interior life sound kind of selfish: like it\u2019s all me and God, and other people can go hang. Nothing could be further from the truth: in order to grow in the love of God, you have to grow in the love of those around you. More precisely: one of the ways in which we can best love God is by loving His people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said that we are like reservoirs for God\u2019s love. God fills us up\u2026but once we are full, the only way to receive more is by passing His love on to others: by going out of our way to love and serve them sacrificially, as Christ loves us sacrificially.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not uncommon these days for people to focus on works of service to the exclusion of the interior life. This is a grave mistake; our whole reason for being here is to learn to love God. But it\u2019s an equally grave mistake to think we can learn to love God without learning to love our fellows. The interior life should overflow in exterior service; and equally, service undertaken out of love of God is a great help to the interior life.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"