God’s Love

(Found here)

“God loves everything that exists. Yet not as we love. Because since our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as by its object, our love, whereby we will good to anything, is not the cause of its goodness; but conversely its goodness, whether real or imaginary, calls forth our love, by which we will that it should preserve the good it has, and receive besides the good it has not, and to this end we direct our actions: whereas the love of God infuses and creates goodness.”

~St. Thomas Aquinas

“In other words, he is saying, when we love, it is because we are responding to the goodness we see in something else. That is how we love.

…How do our loves work? We see goodness and we respond to it with love. But God’s love is different—‘whereas the love of God infuses and creates goodness.’ God does not love us because we are good. God makes us good by loving us.

…[We are] those who have been loved without deserving it at all. But [we are] loved so that we can become something we were not—so that we can truly become God’s sons and daughters. When we have that love, it will overflow. We cannot give what we do not have. It is necessary first to encounter that love from God. When we have it, we can share it with others.”

~John Sehorn