Lord God, you have taught me that anything I do without love

    is worth nothing.

for whoever lives without love

    is counted as dead before you.

Send your Holy Spirit,

    and pour into my heart that most excellent gift of love,

    which is the true bond of peace and of all virtues.

Grant this for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

    who is alive with you and the Holy Spirit,

    one God now and forever.

Amen.

Thomas Cranmer, 1533 – 1556, English archbishop, 1549 Book of Common Prayer

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.