God has so thoroughly conquered and filled his creature with love of himself that it no longer sees any other good, either in heaven or earth, and has no other desire than that of possessing him, nor any fear save that of losing him.
God himself is infusing into the soul “an esteeming love of himself, so intense that the soul’s greatest suffering in the trials of this night is the anguish of thinking it has lost God and been abandoned by him”.
Those who are cold and indifferent to God are not troubled by the fear of losing him; only one who loves him knows this torment which is so much the sharper, the greater love is. And just because it is animated by an intense love, the soul is willing to suffer any kind of pain for God, and “would be happy even to die many times in order to please him”.
Although it does not yet taste the joy of divine love, this love is nevertheless so strong and so real that in actual fact it causes the soul always to choose God before everything else.
Inflamed by the love of the Holy Spirit, the soul becomes anxious and impatient to find its God and goes out in search of him, calling to him without ceasing, because although “it is immersed in darkness, it feels his absence, and is dying with love of him”
Every Christian has been anticipated in his own love for God by God’s love for him, having been created in God’s image and likeness and clothed with divine life; each of us has been and is continually invited to communion with God. “You will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him, if you search for him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Dt 4:29).
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