On Love For God

Extract

Love for God assuredly cannot be taught. We did not learn from others to rejoice in the light or to seek to live; no one taught us to love our parents or those who brought us up. In the same way, and indeed much more truly, the lesson of desiring God is nothing external to us. But as soon as the living creature was formed—I am speaking of man—a sort of seminal principle was implanted in him, having within it a native propensity to love. The school of God's commandments takes charge of this: the right place to cultivate it carefully, to rear it skilfully, and with God's grace bring it to perfection. We welcome your zeal, then, as indispensable for this end.