wpeb.jpg (32274 bytes)The Liberal Catholic Church

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A tri-annual magazine exploring the deeper aspects of religious thought, experience and practice in the world today

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sunsetLove is indeed a transforming force... diffusive and binding – diffusive, because it radiates its beams of goodness not only to friends and neighbours, but also to strangers and enemies - binding, because it makes the lovers of one disposition and will, and makes every holy soul one with Christ. For the person who clings to God is one with him in Spirit, not by nature, but by grace and identity of will. Love transforms the loving one into the Beloved, lifting one into the other. The Holy Spirit’s fire consumes the heart of the one it enters and, as it were, turns it into fire, changing it into a form that is like God. Otherwise one could not understand the words, "You are gods; you are all children of the Most High."

From The Fire of Love by Richard Rolle - a Yorkshire mystic, 1290-1349

Photograph: CJ Covelli