From The Way of Perfection, Saint Teresa of Avila. Anyone who really loves God loves everthing good, wants everything good, stands up for everything good, praises everything good, always sides with good people and supports them and defends them. People like this only love what is genuine and things that deserve to be loved. Do you think that anyone who really and truly loves God could love anything worthless? Of course not -- things like money or worldly trinkets or pleasures or honors; they are not going to fight about things like that, or be envious over them! Why? Because all they bother about is pleasing their Beloved. They are dying for His love, so their whole lives are devoted to finding out how to please Him more. And as for concealing the fact -- why, if it's genuine, love for God is impossible to hide! All you need to do is to look at St. Paul, or the Magdalen,. One of them, St. Paul, only took three days to realize he was ill with love; the Magdalen knew the first day. And how well they understood it! But there's this about it: there can be more, or less love. And the way to tell how strong it is, is this: if there is not much love it will not be very obvious, but it will if there is a lot. But however much there is, the love of God will always show itself. How could such a strong, right, ever-increasing love ever be hidden -- a love that will admit no reason for not loving, a love based on the fact that it has been repaid with another love which is beyond all doubt because it has been openly proved by such great pain and suffering and bloodshed, and the loss of life itself, so as not to leave the slightest doubt about its reality. May God be pleased to give us love like that before He takes us from this life! What a wonderful thing it will be, when we die, to know we are going to be judged by the one we have loved above all else! We won't have to worry about being charged with our sins, and we won't be going to a foreign country, but home, because it belongs to the one we have loved so much, and Who loves us.
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