God is present everywhere, and every person is His work.

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

But taking love itself—God's kind of love—into the depths of our being through spiritual formation will, by contrast, enable us to act lovingly to an extent that will be surprising even to ourselves, at first.

Love is not God, but God is love. It is who he is, his very identity.

God's presence is everywhere around us. God is able to penetrate intertwine himself within the fibers of the human self in such a way that those who are enveloped in His loving companionship will never be alone.

God seeks us. The basic nature of God is one of loving community.

Love is a gift from God, who is love. We can seek a gift and we can receive a gift, but we do not perform for a gift. So, when we read passages of Scripture like those above, we must remember that the call to us is not to do as much as it is to receive.

An older Franciscan brother said to Brennan Manning on the day he joined the order, "Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem as beautiful or desirable.

What my life really is even now is "hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). What I "treasure" in heaven is not just the little that I have caused to be there. It is what I love there and what I place my security and happiness in there.

Spiritual formation in Christ is the process leading to that ideal end, and its result is love of God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself.

Please God … lead me to that kind of love. Until then, help me to know that You are enough.

The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.