We can only know God by love. This is the great teaching of the whole Christian tradition. God cannot be contained in any thought, or in any mental or legal system, or in any place, in any ritual, in any external form. But God can be known by love and, therefore, we must learn how to love God. I remember some time ago, being with a woman who was dying. She was tormented by the fear that she did not love God. She was a good woman who had lived a good life, but she was facing this tremendous anguish on her deathbed, and it was only very slowly and painfully that she came to understand that the very desire to love God is itself the love of God. To want to love is to love, but the full flowering of love takes time.
(Aspects of Love 3 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
