On the Love of God

It is very strange that it should be necessary to excite and exhort man to the love of God, when we consider that God is his first beginning and his last end, and the only Source of his happiness; yet God has thought Himself obliged to make of it a precept. Is not the love we have for ourselves sufficient to engage us to love God, and do we require any other motive than that of our greatest and even our only interest? "You command me to love You, O my God!" says Saint Augustine, "as if it would not be for me the greatest misfortune not to love You!" However this may be, God has made of it a commandment, and the first and greatest of all commandments, the one which contains all the others.

It is given in these words: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, and with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength."

Let us explain the words of this commandment, and let us see by what marks we can discover if we are keeping it or not.

We are to love with a reasonable love, with a love of preference, with a love as much above other loves as God is above all other things which can excite the love of man. We are to love, not for a moment, or for a short time, or at intervals, but always and at every moment, from the first instant that our reason begins to know God until our last mortal sigh. This is to be the actual and habitual, the fixed and permanent disposition of our hearts. We are to love with a love proportionate to the state of innocence in which God created the first man, and to which He has restored us by the Sacrament of Baptism, with a love that is infused, and therefore supernatural, and we are to preserve always, as a most precious gift, the sanctifying grace which accompanies this love; and, if we have not yet attained this grace, we must do all we possibly can to obtain it; and if we have lost it through our own fault, we must omit nothing we can do to recover it later on. God offers His grace to every one, and with His grace the inestimable gift of His Divine love; and if a man has reached the age of reason, it is always his own fault if he does not receive sooner or later both these gracious gifts.

"Thou shall love the Lord thy God." The principal motives for the love of God are contained in these words. He is God; the Being that is infinitely perfect, the Being that is infinitely amiable amiable in Himself, by Himself, and for Himself, the Source of all the amiability and perfection which there can ever be in created things. He merits therefore the purest, the most disinterested love, a love that is independent of all other loves. He is our God. We have with Him every sort of relationship that it is possible to have. He drew us out of nothing; He has made us what we are; He has given us every blessing we enjoy; and He preserves them to us, and preserves us also, every moment of our lives. He has done still more for us in the order of grace than in the order of nature; His Divine revelation has taught us the extent of His benefits; let us only meditate upon them, and we shall see what love and gratitude we owe Him. He has prepared for us still greater blessings in the order of glory; for He alone created us, He alone redeemed us, that He might make us happy for ever in the possession of Himself. The eternal love, which He has for each one of us, alone induced Him to create us, and to promise us and prepare us for such great benefits; and in return for all this He only asks us to love Him as our Creator, our Saviour, and our Rewarder. Is not this just? Can we refuse to fulfill this duty?

Again, He is "the Lord," the sovereign Lord, the only Lord, the beginning of all things, the end of all things, the centre of all things. Nothing else is lovable, except by Him and through Him; we cannot refuse Him our homage without falling into the sin of rebellion, neither can we share it with any other object without the greatest injustice. His principal kingdom, and that of which He is most jealous, is in our hearts; it is by love that He wishes to reign over us; it is not sufficient for Him that we should fear Him; what He desires and commands above all things is that we should love Him. He requires this love of us under the penalty, if we refuse it to Him, of the greatest of all miseries, of an everlasting misery, of an inevitable misery, from which nothing can save us. Every motive of justice, and gratitude, and hope, and fear, unite together to subject us to this law of love.

Therefore we must love the Lord our God. And how? With our whole mind, which was only given to us that we might know Him. We are to have Him always present to our thoughts, in such a manner that we at once banish from our minds any thought that might offend Him, any thought that might distract us and fix our attention on any other object to the injury of the attachment we ought to have for Him alone. This law of love commands us to seek instruction, and to occupy ourselves with the things of God and with all belonging to His service, with the duties of our state of life; in short, it commands us to lead a serious life, as is fitting for a creature made only for God.

We must love Him with all our heart. Our chief affection must be for God, and all our other affections must be referred to Him. And we must renounce them if we find that they are drawing us away from Him. God will have all our heart: He will not share it with any one; because He made it for Himself alone, and we cannot love Him as He deserves to be loved if we love at the same time anything else that we do not love for His sake.

We are to love Him with all our soul; that is to say, we are always to be ready to sacrifice everything for Him our wealth, our honour, and our life itself; and we are to consent to renounce everything, to suffer everything, to lose everything, rather than transgress the commandment of the love of God. Our love for Him must raise us above all the pleasures of sense, above all human respect, above all human fear, above all promises and all threats, above all the advantages which the world may offer us, and of which it can deprive us. And we must always believe, and act as if we believed, that if we lose all for God's sake we gain all.

Finally, we must love Him with all our strength; that is to say, we must put no bounds to our love, because the measure of the love of God is to love Him without measure. We are to strive continually to increase our love; all our intentions, all our actions must tend to this end, and we must make it the object of all our prayers and practices of piety. Oh how noble this intention is! how worthy of God and man! To pray, to frequent the Sacraments, to exercise works of charity, to suffer all the pains and sorrows of this life, solely with the view of increasing in us this holy love! That indeed is to love God with all our strength!

But by what marks can we know if we love God in this manner? For this is a matter that torments many good and faithful souls, who can scarcely be reassured about it. And on this subject I will say to them

1st. That this very fear of not loving God enough, our very uneasiness about it, our desire to love Him more, is a most unequivocal proof that our heart belongs to Him. But I must add that often there is a good deal of self-love in this fear and uneasiness, when they are excessive; and we must always be guided by the decisions of a wise confessor, and not trouble the peace of our soul by examining ourselves with too much anxiety.

2nd. That it is not by the feeling of a sensible love that we can judge of its reality, but by the effects it produces. Sensible affections and sensible joy in loving do not depend upon us; God gives them or withholds them as He pleases. These feelings are deceptive; they come sometimes from the imagination, or from a naturally loving and tender disposition, or from indiscreet efforts; it is dangerous to be too much attached to them; and the devil may send them to us sometimes to deceive us and lead us astray. In this extreme attachment to sensible devotion we love God less than we love ourselves. It is therefore by its effects that we must judge of the reality of our love: if we are courageous in undertaking all for God, and in suffering all for God; if our own consolation counts for nothing in the service of God; if we seek ourselves in nothing; if we persevere in spite of temptations and disgust, and weariness and desolation these are the true proofs of love.

3rd. In proportion as we advance in the spiritual life we reflect less upon our love to God and our disposition with regard to Him: we abandon ourselves to Him in this matter, as in all others; we love Him without thinking of it, scarcely knowing that we love Him; and it is then that we love Him with the greatest purity. We are no longer exposed to the danger of looking on ourselves with vain complacency: the soul flies straight to God without thinking of herself at all. Love is her life, and her life is in God. She is engulphed and lost in Him; and if she were to become capable of reflecting and telling herself how much she loves Him, she would be no longer in that blessed state, and would be in danger of falling from it.

4th. It is not generally by reflections or frequent self-examinations that the love of God is acquired and preserved, but by a direct looking towards God, by a pure intention, by a constant renunciation of all self-interested views, and by a continual fidelity in following all the movements of Divine grace and never listening to the promptings of our own spirit.

Love has its source in God: it is He who places it in our hearts; He alone can increase it there. He alone knows what its nature and perfection really are. Let Him do what He will: He who has given us the beginning of His love will give us progress in it, if we keep ourselves constantly united to Him and suffer ourselves to be guided by His Spirit. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ said: "I am come to bring fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be enkindled? 11 Let us give Him our hearts, that He may kindle in them this Divine fire; once lighted it will never be extinguished of itself, its sacred flames will consume all that is earthly and impure in our souls, and at last it will consume the soul itself, with all that belongs to it, and will unite it to God Himself. Amen. So be it.

- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou