Dear Friends
At this time of year love is very much in the air with Valentine’s Day fast approaching. It
reminds me of a story told by the French chronicler, Yves le Breton, who during the
crusades, came across an elderly woman carrying two bowls, one full of fire and the other
full of water. When he asked why she was carrying them, she answered, ‘With this bowl on
my left I want to set paradise ablaze, and with the one on my right I want to extinguish the
flames of hell.’ ‘But why?’ exclaimed Breton. ‘Because,’ replied the woman, ‘I do not want
anyone to do good on account of paradise or the fear of hell, but exclusively for the love of
God.’ 
There’s a powerful challenge in that little story. The threat of hell and promise of heaven
have played an unhealthy part in the history of Christianity, too often having been used to
browbeat people into assent to Christian dogma for fear of eternal damnation or to coax
them into it through the prospect of life beyond the grave. Not only are both forms of
proselytising hugely exploitative, but the ‘commitment’ resulting from them is essentially
self-centred – an attempt in this world to secure participation in the next on the best
possible terms. They amount to putting self first and God second, serving him only on
condition that he first serves us. 
The picture painted by that old lady in the story is very different; it is one of loving God not
for what we can get out of him but simply for who he is; a disinterested love that we cannot
hold back but that wells up within us in joyful gratitude and heartfelt adoration. That is
where true faith begins and ends: not in escaping punishment or expecting blessing but in
loving the one who is love itself – St Valentine himself knew a thing or two about that!
Yours in Christ
Simon