Why and how to love God

     You have asked me to tell you why and how God is to be loved.  

God himself is the reason why.  Without limit is how.

     For the wise, that is answer enough.

     But now I will speak more elaborately, if less profoundly, for the 

benefit of less agile minds.

     There are two reasons for loving God.  First, there is no one more 

worthy of your love.  Second, no one can return more in response to 

your love.

     God deserves our love because he first loved us.  His love for us was

genuine because he sought nothing for himself.  See the object of his 

love: enemies.  For it, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled 

to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been recon-

ciled, shall we be saved through his life.  Paul writes to the Romans.   

God's love was unconditional.

     How much did he love?  The anwer is in John's Gospel:  "For God so 

loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever 

believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  The Son, speaking 

of himself, said, "The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for 

them."  We, the wicked, then, should love the Righteous One in return.

  

                                                          Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God

Who is Bernard of Clairvaux? Bernard, 1090 to August 20, 1153, was a

French abbot principally responsible for reforming the Cisterician

monastic order. Bernard was the first Cistercian monk placed on the

calendar of saints. He was canonized by Pope Alexander III, on January

18, 1174.

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