Love is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the practice.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
It is not possible to love your neighbor unless you love God. If you love God first, then you can love your neighbor in God… If we really love God, we will love what belongs to God. We will love in the same manner as we have been loved. We care about others even as Christ cared. We love the Lord not because he is good to us, but because the Lord is good.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Don’t be deceived regarding the knowledge of what will be after your death: what you sow here, you will reap there. After leaving here, no one can make progress. Here is the work, there the reward; here the struggle, there the crowns.
–Saint Barsanuphius the Great (Sixth Century)
For, says Scripture, this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Nor did he simply give him, but even to death, death on a cross. . . Have you seen the mighty love of his strength? Have you seen the measureless mercy of his love for humanity? How unsearchable are his mercies and inscrutable his acts of compassion, which he has poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior! What may we, poor wretches, say to all this? What may we think? Shall we willingly return to sin? Shall we long for dishonor? Shall we choose corruption and condemnation?
–Saint Theodore the Studite (c. 759-826)
If we can enter the church day and night and implore God to hear our prayers, how careful we should be to hear and grant the petitions of our neighbors in need.
–Saint Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)
