It is relatively easy to speak about love; it is more difficult when another person actually needs our time, energy, money, creativity or something else to experience love.  Before his meditation on attaining love Ignatius  said, "Love must be situated more in the work than in the words."  It is more difficult to love a person who does not love us in return.  "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?... What more are you doing than others?"  said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:46 ff.).  There is no other way that symbolizes our love for God, the response of our love that we want to make in response to God's love, than to love others.  The First Letter of John states it pointedly, "For whoever does not love his [her] brother [sister] whom he [she] has seen, cannot love God whom he [she] has not seen." (I John 4:20).  Love for God must be realized in the love for others.  That is not only a burden, it can be a blessing.  God's self is brought truly and really to us through anothers.  Love for others actualized in doing makes the doing a symbol of our love for God in the reality itself!

- Matthew 25:31-40 ("you did it to me")

- Isaiah 58:2-8 (Do not withdraw yourself from your fellow human beings)

- James 2:15 f. ("What does it profit?")