The First Sunday of Advent

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Paul addressed the Thessalonians:

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 3:12 - 4:2

As the Benedict XVI pointed out in the title of his first encyclical God is Love and God calls on us to love one another.

God is, not by metaphor or analogy, but in his very essence Love. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To be love one has to have another to love and it is the love of the Three Persons that is that essence. A love so great that he made mankind to share that love, and when we went astray sent the Son as a babe because God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

This is a radical Christian idea.

And because of this God calls on us to love one another as we love ourselves, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father.