Love is More Than Feelings

Love for God does not consist in sensible feelings, although these too may be given to us by Our Lord so as to help us to be more generous. It consists essentially in the full identification of our will with that of God ...

Love is repaid with love, but it must be genuine love, which is seen in specific ways in the fulfillment of our duties toward God and towards others, even when our feelings do not incline us in this direction, and it may be for us an uphill struggle. The highest perfection consists not in interior favors or in great raptures, wrote St. Teresa, but in the Will of God that, as soon as we realize that he wills anything, we desire it ourselves with all our might.

In the service of God, a Christian should be guided by faith an in this way overcome the ups and downs of moods. To guide myself by mere sentiment would be like putting a servant in charge of the household and causing the master to relinquish his position. Sentiment is not what is bad, but the importance that is given to it ... In certain souls the emotions constitute all their piety, to such an extent that they are convinced that they have lost it whenever the feeling goes away ... If only these souls could understand that this is precisely the moment in which to begin to have it (J. Tissot, The Interior Life).

Lent and Eastertide (In Conversation with God, Vol. 2)