10,000 steps and Loving One Another

This spring I have been making a concerted effort to increase my activities.  One way is by consciously tracking my steps.  My results vary from just meeting my goal of 10,000 steps a day to days of falling short or delightfully exceeding my goal.  It has created unexpected opportunities to connect in different ways with friends and family.  In being more mindful of my steps I have found myself increasing my activity, making different choices, and starting again each day.  I’ll come back to this in just a moment.

Since hearing the Gospel on Sunday, I keep coming back to Jesus’s commandment to the apostles then, and to us now, to “love one another.”   A commandment Jesus embodied in his living and his dying.  I find this commandment easy to follow when it involves people I want to serve or whose company I am glad to keep.  The challenge of loving another for me is in the moments of misunderstanding, differences, hurt, or challenge.  Those moments which I am called to sacrifice, to love beyond what I want or think I can.

In the midst of being overwhelmed by the implications of really living this commandment it occurred to me that it is done one step, one choice at a time.  It is the conscious choice to love another, to allow ourselves to sacrifice, and love beyond our perceived limits that leads us to embody this commandment.  It is the perseverance to keep working at it, not alone but all together. 

As we continue to celebrate this Year of Consecrated Life may we both within and outside the monastery walls continue to witness in our daily steps to this commandment to “love one another.”

Sr. Kimberly Porter, OSB