True Love: nice quotes vs. real action

Love for souls sounds theoretical, vague, and ambiguous. But we’re talking about authentic Christian love, charity. We don’t just love on a human level, but we love others as spiritual and eternal persons, images of God himself. “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him” (Gn 1:27). 

The example that the Holy Father gives at the beginning of the Year of Faith is that of the Samaritan woman at the well. She asks Christ for water, but he goes far beyond her physical needs and loves her more deeply. “If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me something to drink,’ you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10). He recognizes her real thirst and tries to quench it.