"A God Who Is Love"

"Only a God Who is love could ask you to love Him with all your heart.
​Only He Who has given you everything could ask you for everything."

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"Only He Who loved you on the Cross could demand from you a love that will lead you to the Cross. Only He Who forms your heart each day with His Spirit could ask you to love in ways different from that of 'flesh and blood.'

"It is therefore often a crucified love, because at certain times it is "at great price." It is not a "game." It is a love that turns often to the Crucifix, in order to remain faithful to crucified love.

"It is a love that knows how to pass from the transfigured face of Jesus to the disfigured face of the Crucifix, a love that exults on Tabor and is faithful on Calvary, a love that knows the powerful attraction of the divine eros and knows how to lower itself to agape's humble, obscure way of loving.

The Crucifixion by Leon Bonnat

​"It is a love that must always be cultivated in interiority, in intense prayer, for it imitates the virginal, praying Son, knowing that chastity and intimacy with the Lord are one and the same thing. Only one who cultivates prayerful intimacy can bear witness that the virginal life is the fruit of an invisible, but irresistible, love.

"It is the love of the bride for the Bridegroom: 'It is toward the garden of perfect Union that our path leads.'"

​~from A Short Course on the Consecrated Life