Seton Magazine Catholic Homeschool Articles, Advice & Resources
A friend of mine recently asked for a quote to remind her of the love of God. Her request was an expression of the profound need in every human: to see the evidence of love.
As a way of answering my friend, I began a little project to find not one, but twenty-five expressions of the love of God. Some are from Scripture, some from saints, and some from contemporaries—each expressing a different nuance.
Augustine teaches us that God is only seen through a darkly-lit mirror, so any idea of love we have is cloudy—at best. Our rays of knowledge often fail to shine through a terribly fallen human nature and a relentlessly fallen world.
Yet, meditating on the love of God is vital for us at every moment of our lives.
We live in an age of doubt with no benefit, even to the point of doubting our own worth.
But of this, there can be no doubt: God loves you.
When He created you, God created a unique person who is far too precious for words. Let me introduce you to someone who has been loved for all eternity: you.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” St. Paul, Letter to the Romans 8:38-39
“For God foreknew in eternity all of his created beings, which he brought forth in the fullness of Love…” St. Hildegard of Bingen
“God has loved us from all eternity. Children of men, says the Lord, remember that I first loved you. You had not yet been born, the world itself did not exist, and even then I loved you.” Saint Alphonsus Liguori
“Indeed, you have loved me simultaneously with your existence as God; consequently you have loved me always and will always love me. Even though I did not yet exist, you already loved me…” St. Maximilian Kolbe
“I acknowledge and do not deny that Thou didst love me before I existed, and that Thy love for me is ineffable, as if Thou wast mad with love for Thy creature.” St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“God is biased in your favor. God is more lenient than you because He is perfectly good and therefore loves you more. Be bold enough then to believe that God is on your side, even when you forget to be on His.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen, A Preface to Religion
“To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.” C. S. Lewis, Weight of Glory (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis)
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” St. Augustine
“…No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart conceived, the welcome God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
“…God does not only give us a simple sufficiency of means to love Him, and in loving Him to save ourselves, but also a rich, ample and magnificent sufficiency, and such as ought to be expected from so great a bounty as His.” St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God
“This Beloved of ours is merciful and good. Besides, He so deeply longs for our love that He keeps calling us to come closer. This voice of His is so sweet that the poor soul falls apart in the face of her own inability to instantly do whatever he asks of her.” St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
“I assure you that the good Lord is much kinder than you can imagine. He is satisfied with a glance, with a sigh of love…” St. Therese of Lisieux
“O Lord, my God, who will seek you with simple and pure love, and not find that you are all one can desire, for you show yourself first and go out to meet those who seek you?” St John of the Cross
“The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, It produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.” Saint Thomas Aquinas
“We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God’s compassionate love for others.” St. Clare of Assisi
“Our Lord loves you and loves you tenderly; and if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love, it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes.” St. Pio of Pietrelcino
“When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form.” Pope Benedict XVI
“Our infinite sadness can only be cured by an infinite love.” Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium.
“Keep your heart in peace and let nothing trouble you, not even your faults. You must humble yourself and amend them peacefully, without being discouraged or cast down, for God’s dwelling is in peace.” St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
“Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy.” St. Faustina’s Diary
“Trusting God’s grace means trusting God’s love for us rather than our love for God… Therefore our prayers should consist mainly of rousing our awareness of God’s love for us rather than trying to rouse God’s awareness of our love for him…” Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners
“We have been created to love and to be loved.” Mother Teresa
“But let us see how great the love was that the Son, whom You gave to us, had toward us. There is no language that could explain it. As St. Paul says, the love of Christ surpasses all knowledge (Eph3:19), even the knowledge of the angels, because none of them will succeed in knowing it.” Saint John of Avila, Treatise on the Love of God & Treatise on the Priesthood
“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed his head, and gave up His spirit.” John 19:30
