The Oxbow, Thomas Cole; 1836

“IT would … be a grievous error to conceive the love of God as anything which essentially involves sense-emotion or feeling. The love of God lies in the grace-aided will; it presupposes the intellect insofar as the will needs its cooperation to love, for the will is a blind faculty; but in practice one need only attend to the will. A very high degree of love of God is quite compatible with an absence of any feeling of emotion, and even with the presence of a feeling of distaste for the service of God. We have only to remember our Lord’s prayer in the Agony at Gethsemani to realize that. In fact, if one is going to achieve the heights of the spiritual life, it is necessary to pass through a stage where one’s apparent spiritual activity is reduced to a dry act of willingness to conform one’s self to God’s Will, in the darkness of a sheer decision to believe in God without light of any sort. This does not mean that the emotions have not their part to play in the spiritual life. On the contrary, they can be a most effective aid to the real agent, which is the will working by faith.”

— Fr. M. Eugene Boylan, This Tremendous Lover

— Comments —

Paul writes:

Appreciate this post… used to be confused about what “ loving God” meant…thought I was deficient, as I couldn’t identify with some who seem to be emotional about it.

Was gratified to finally notice Jn 14:15-“If you love me, you will keep my commandments”.

Laura writes:

I know what you mean. So many make the same error, especially in this day of enforced sentimentality.

I didn’t feel a scrap of love toward God when I started loving him.

I realized everything I felt love for came from him.

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