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LOVE

 

Do much for God, and do nothing without love: refer everything to this love; eat and drink with it in mind.  (Letter to Madame de Chantal)

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How happy we are when we want to love Our Lord!  Let’s really love Him, my daughter, and let’s not start examining in detail what we are doing for love of Him, as long as we know that we never want to do anything except for love of Him.  (Letter to Madame de Chantal)

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Between death and love there is no alternative. (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI, 24)

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Love and death are so mingled in the Passion of Our Lord that we cannot have the one in our heart without the other. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 12, Chapter 13)

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All is love’s, and in love, for love, in holy Church. (Treatise on the Love of God, Preface)

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Hatred separates us, and love brings us into one. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 9)

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To love according to the spirit is to love according to the spirit; to live according to the flesh is to love according to the flesh; for love is the life of the soul as the soul is the life of the body. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 47)

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Love is the movement, effusion and advancement of the heart toward the good. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 7)

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The affinity which causes love does not always consist in resemblance, but in the mutual relation between the lover and the thing loved. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 8)

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The union to which love aspires is spiritual. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 10)

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Love not finding us equal, equalizes us, not finding us united, unites us. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 13)

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The end of love is no other thing than the union of the lover and the thing loved. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 9).

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We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 1)

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All is subject to heavenly love, who will either be king or nothing. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 6)

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Love is like fire, which is of clearer and fairer flame as its matter is more delicate. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 10)

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Love is bittersweet, and while we live in this world it never has a sweetness per­fectly sweet, because it is not perfect, nor ever purely satisfied. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13)

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Love either takes away the hardship of labor, or makes it dear to us while we feel it. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 2)

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The Holy Ghost teaches that the lips of the Spouse, that is the Church, resemble scarlet and the dropping honeycomb, to let everyone know that all the doctrine which she announces consists in sacred love. (Treatise on the Love of God, Preface)

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Love is the abridgment of all theology. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 1)

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During this mortal life we must choose eternal love or eternal death, there is no middle choice. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 13)

 

THOU HAST MADE US FOR THEE, O GOD!

God wants you wholly and without reserve, and to the very utmost stripped and denuded o£ self. (Letters to Persons in Religion, V, 5)

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Amongst all loves, God's is so to be preferred that we must always stand pre-oared in mind to forsake them all for that alone. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 7)

 

God's love for Us

How amorous the divine Heart is of our love! (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 8)

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When did God's love for you begin? When He began to be God. When did He begin to be God? Never, for He has always been without beginning and with­out end, and so He has always loved you from all eternity. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part V, Chapter 14)

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If God had not created man He would still indeed have been perfect in goodness, but He would not have been actually merciful, since mercy can only be exer­cised toward the miserable. (Spiritual Conferences, 2)

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So gentle is God's hand in the handling of our hearts! (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 12)

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God never loves a soul more without bestowing upon her more charity, our love toward Him being the proper and special effect of His love toward us. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 2)

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There is no great spirit except that of God, who is so good that He willingly dwells in our little spirits. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 30)

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No, no, God is not so terrible to those whom He loves — He is content with little, for He well knows we have not much. (Letters to Persons in Religion, I, 8)

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God does not love our imperfections and venial sins, but He loves us much in spite of them. (Letters to Persons in the World, VI, 48)

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The sovereign spirit of God is every­where, without whose leave no spirit stirs. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV, 14)

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The world is a great stage on which God displays His many wonders. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, XIX 3)

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God is a hidden God and He likes to be served and worshiped secretly. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, VII 11)

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God works from afar and from close by, and calls the distant to the service of those who serve Him without bringing them near. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV, 15)

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God rejects nothing in which no malice nor ill-will is to be found. (Spiritual Conferences, 20)

 

The Love of God

The love of God is the end, the perfection and the excellence of the universe. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 1)

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The love of God is a love without peer, because the goodness of God is a peerless goodness. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 6)

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It is the great good of our souls to be “to God”, and the greatest good to be only “to God.”  (Letters to Persons in the World, I, 16)

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The love of men toward God takes its ring, progress and perfection from the eternal love of God toward men. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4, Chapter 6)

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That which is not God is for us noth­ing. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III 18)

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We retire to God because we aspire to Him, and we aspire to Him in order to retire to Him. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 13)

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He who most loves will be most loved. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 43)

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Charity is a love of friendship. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 22)

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The love of complacency draws God into our hearts, but the love of benev­olence casts our hearts into God. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 2)

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Happy is the heart that loves God without pretense of any other pleasure than that it takes in pleasing God! (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 11)

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We must seek in God only the love of His beauty, not the pleasure which is in the beauty of this love. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 10)

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Truth which is not charitable springs from a charity which is not true. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, II 12)

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He who communicates according to the spirit of the Spouse annihilates himself, and says to our Lord: annihilate me and convert me into Thee. (Letters to Persons in Religion, IV 12)

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God looks at the intention of the heart rather than the gifts He is offered. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, XV, 9)

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All is made for charity, and charity for God. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 6)

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There is nothing small in the service of God. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III 26)

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When the house is on fire, people are ready to throw everything out of the win­dow; when the heart is full of God's love, people are certain to look upon all else as of little worth. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, III 1)

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Those whose one desire is to please the divine Lover, have neither inclination nor leisure to turn back upon them­selves. (Spiritual Conferences, 12)

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How happy are we to be slaves of God, who made Himself a slave for us! (Letters to Persons in Religion, II 8)

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Charity is the pure gold which makes us rich in eternal wealth. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, V 2)

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Charity never enters the heart with­out lodging there all the other virtues in its train. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 1)

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Charity is amongst the virtues, as the sun amongst the stars; she distributes to all their lustre and beauty. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 9)

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It is not right to keep the humanity of Jesus Christ and at the same time have this admirable wine of heaven—the Holy Spirit. (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI 16)

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We must sometimes leave our Lord in order to please others for the love of Him. (Letters to Persons in the World, II 6)

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Never does any love take away our hearts from God, save that which is con­trary to Him. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 3)

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Let everything be in confusion, not only around us but even within us, yet always the highest point of our heart must look unceasingly toward the love of God. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Chapter 13)

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The most certain sign that we love God only in all things is when we love Him equally in all things. (The Spirit of St. François de Sales, I, 8)

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Charity is much stronger and more assiduous than mere natural affection. (Spiritual Conferences, 21)

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We leave charity for a moment, and this imperfect habit of human love is thrust upon us, and we content ourselves with it as if it were true charity, till some clear light shows us that we have been de­ceived. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4, Chapter 10)

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Do much for God, and do nothing without love; apply all to this love; eat and drink for it. (Letters to Persons in the World, III, 11)

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