Today's council 10 September 2020 of San Massimo the confessor

San Massimo the Confessor (ca 580-662)
monk and theologian

Centuria I on love, n. 16, 56-58, 60, 54
The law of Christ is love
“Whoever loves me, says the Lord, will keep my commandments. This is my commandment: love one another "(cf. Jn 14,15.23; 15,12:XNUMX). Therefore, whoever does not love his neighbor does not keep the commandment. And whoever doesn't keep the commandment doesn't know how to love the Lord. (...)

If love is the fulfillment of the law (cf. Rom 13,10:4,11), who is angry with his brother, who plots against him, who wishes him badly, who enjoys his fall, how can he not transgress the law and not be worthy of eternal punishment? If the one who slanders and judges his brother slanders and gludifies the law (cf. Jas XNUMX:XNUMX), and if the law of Christ is love, as the slanderer will not fall from the love of Christ and will put himself under the yoke of eternal punishment?

Do not listen to the language of the slanderer, and do not speak in the ear of one who likes to speak ill. You do not like to speak against your neighbor or listen to what is said against him, so as not to fall from divine love and not to be found alien to eternal life. (...) Shut the mouth of those who slander to your ears, so as not to commit a double sin with him, getting used to a dangerous thing and not preventing the slanderer from speaking wrongly and thoroughly against his neighbor. (...)

If all the charisms of the Spirit, without love, are useless to those who possess them, according to the divine Apostle (cf. 1 Cor 13,3), what fervor we must have to acquire love!