Grant that I may not so much...

I've been thinking about how much easier it is to love, to give love, than to receive it.

St. Francis calls us to it in his prayer:

Grant that we may not so much seek to be loved, as to love.

It seems good advice all around.

Loving rather than being loved is not merely more of a gift, more of a self-donation. It is also less painful. By a long shot.

Perhaps that is why God -is- love. Perhaps that is how Yeshua stands the pain of rejection throughout eternity, and doesn't anhialate all the universes in a cataclysmic explosion of grief.

He loves. He is love. He seeks to love.

Grant me, Lord, that I may not so much seek to be loved, as to love.