I Cannot Persuade Myself That Without Love

Just As We Would Have No Need Of The Farmer's Labor And Toil If We Were Living Amid The Delights Of Paradise, So Also We Would Not Require The Medical Art For Relief If We Were Immune To Disease, As Was The Case, By God's Gift, At The Time Of Creation Before The Fall.

To Whom Does Our God Say, 'in Our Image' (gen. 1:26), To Whom If It Is Not To Him Who Is 'the Brightness Of His Glory And The Express Image Of His Person' (heb. 1:3), 'the Image Of The Invisible God' (col. 1:15)? It Is Then To His Living Image, To Him Who Has Said 'i And My Father Are One' (jn. 10:30), 'he Who Has Seen Me Has Seen The Father' (jn. 14:9), That God Says, 'let Us Make Man In Our Image'.

God Who Created Us Has Granted Us The Faculty Of Speech That We Might Disclose The Counsels Of Our Hearts To One Another And That, Since We Possess Our Human Nature In Common, Each Of Us Might Share His Thoughts With His Neighbor, Bringing Them Forth From The Secret Recesses Of The Heart As From A Treasury.

In Truth, To Know Oneself Seems To Be The Hardest Of All Things. Not Only Our Eye, Which Observes External Objects, Does Not Use The Sense Of Sight Upon Itself, But Even Our Mind, Which Contemplates Intently Another's Sin, Is Slow In The Recognition Of Its Own Defects.

The Love Of God Is Not Taught. No One Has Taught Us To Enjoy The Light Or To Be Attached To Life More Than Anything Else. And No One Has Taught Us To Love The Two People Who Brought Us Into The World And Educated Us. Which Is All The More Reason To Believe That We Did Not Learn To Love God As A Result Of Outside Instruction. In The Very Nature Of Every Human Being Has Been Sown The Seed Of The Ability To Love. You And I Ought To Welcome This Seed, Cultivate It Carefully, Nourish It Attentively And Foster Its Growth By Going To The School Of God's Commandments With Help Of His Grace.