A quote from Saint Augustine for this season of alleluias, when we rejoice in God’s love for us in Jesus Christ:
“Let us love, because He first loved us.” [1 John 4:19]
For how should we love, except He had first loved us? By loving we became friends: but He loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and gave us the gift of loving Him. We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful…
But our soul, my brethren, is unlovely by reason of iniquity: by loving God it becomes lovely. What a love must that be that makes the lover beautiful! But God is always lovely, never unlovely, never changeable. Who is always lovely first loved us…
How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is always lovely. As the love increases in you, so the loveliness increases: for love is itself the beauty of the soul.
“Let us love, because He first loved us.”
Homilies on the First Letter of John, IX,9,
Translated by H. Browne