We often speak about loving God as though everyone already knows what this means. We teach people how to pray, how to worship and how to distinguish right from wrong, but a more fundamental question remains: how do we actually learn to love a God whom we cannot see, touch or hold? We know what it means to love a parent, a spouse, a child or a close friend because these relationships are part of our visible experience. Loving God can seem more elusive, especially when prayer feels dry or when we do not experience any strong sense of his presence. To understand how love for God grows, we first need to understand what we mean by love.

We use the word “love” in several different ways. Sometimes we mean an emotion, a feeling of attraction toward someone or something that draws us toward it. We can speak casually of loving a particular food, a place, music or some activity because it gives us pleasure. In human relationships, this emotional dimension can be far more powerful. Falling in love may involve an intense attraction that seems to arise spontaneously and can profoundly affect the way we think and act.

This emotional form of love is real and important, but it is not the whole of love. Feelings come and go, often for reasons we do not fully understand. If love depended entirely on emotional attraction, we could love another person only while the appropriate feelings remained. Yet some of the greatest acts of love occur precisely when our feelings do not support what love requires.

Love can also be understood as a virtue, a stable disposition by which we seek the true good of another person. Christ commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and this command clearly cannot mean that we must always feel spontaneous affection for everyone. There will be people whose personalities irritate us, whose behaviour disappoints us or toward whom we feel little natural attraction. We can nevertheless choose to seek their good, treat them with respect, forgive them and serve them when they are in need.

Christian love therefore goes deeper than emotion. A mother who gets out of bed repeatedly to care for a sick child may be exhausted and feel no emotional enthusiasm at that moment, yet her actions express profound love. A person who forgives someone who has hurt him may still feel pain and anger, but he can choose not to seek revenge. Love is revealed not only in what we feel but in what we will and do.

This is why the Church has always placed such emphasis on the works of mercy. We learn to love by loving. We feed the hungry, care for the sick, comfort those who suffer, forgive injuries and bear patiently with the weaknesses of others. These actions are not merely consequences of a love that already exists in perfect form. They are also the means by which love grows within us.

The same principle applies to our love for God. We should not assume that loving him means continually experiencing strong religious emotion. God may give us moments of consolation, a vivid sense of his presence or deep affection in prayer, and we should receive these gifts gratefully. But such feelings are not the essence of our relationship with him. If they were, our love would become uncertain whenever prayer became dry or our emotions were absorbed by other concerns.

Christian tradition speaks of something deeper: supernatural charity. Charity is one of the theological virtues infused into the soul by God. Through grace we are enabled to love God not merely with our limited natural capacities but by sharing in God’s own life. The love with which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit live in eternal communion is opened to us, and through Baptism we are drawn into this divine family.

This is an astonishing claim. Christianity does not simply teach us to admire God from a distance or obey him as an external authority. Grace makes possible a real communion with him. We become adopted sons and daughters of the Father in Christ, and the Holy Spirit dwells within us. Supernatural charity enables us to love God above all things for his own sake and to love others because they too are loved by him.

Our love for God therefore begins with God’s love for us. St. John writes, “We love because he first loved us.” We do not create this relationship by our own effort. God takes the initiative. He creates us, calls us, redeems us in Christ and gives us grace. Our task is to receive that love and respond to it.

This changes the way we approach the question of learning to love God. We do not begin by trying to manufacture religious feelings. We begin by discovering how much we have been loved. The more deeply we understand creation, the Incarnation, the Cross, the Eucharist and the mercy offered to us in Confession, the more material we have for love. Christian prayer continually returns to these realities because love grows through the knowledge that we are loved.

The Cross stands at the centre of this discovery. Christ does not merely tell us that God loves us; he shows us what that love means by giving himself completely. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” When we contemplate Christ crucified, we see that God’s love is not an abstraction. The Son of God has entered our condition, borne our sins and suffered death so that we might share his life.

Our response is not primarily an attempt to generate an emotion equal to such a gift. We could never do so. We respond by giving ourselves in return. Love answers love through the offering of our freedom. We begin to say to God, not merely with words but through our choices: I want what you want because I trust you and because you have loved me first.

This is why obedience belongs so closely to love. Jesus himself says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” At first hearing, this can sound as though obedience were a test imposed upon love from outside. In reality, obedience is one of the principal ways love becomes concrete. If we genuinely love God, we want our life to be shaped by what is good in his eyes.

Christ gives us the perfect example. His obedience to the Father reaches its culmination on the Cross. He becomes “obedient unto death,” not because he lacks freedom but because his freedom is completely united with love. In Gethsemane he experiences the full human cost of what lies before him, yet he says, “Not my will, but yours, be done.” His love is shown precisely in the free surrender of his will.

We learn to love God in the same way, though on a much smaller scale. Every time we choose what we know God asks of us, especially when another choice would be easier or more attractive, we exercise love. Keeping a commandment when it costs us something, fulfilling our duties faithfully, resisting temptation, accepting a sacrifice or forgiving someone who has hurt us can all become acts of love for God.

This does not make Christianity a system of mere rule-keeping. Two people can perform the same outward action for very different reasons. One may obey from fear, another from habit, and another because he loves. Christian maturity gradually transforms obedience from something experienced mainly as external obligation into a response of trust and love.

We should not be discouraged if our motives are mixed. Spiritual growth is gradual. We may obey partly because we know we should, partly because we fear the consequences of doing otherwise and partly because we genuinely want to please God. Grace works within this imperfect beginning and gradually purifies our motives.

Our love for God is inseparable from love for other people. St. John states this with startling directness: “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” We cannot claim intimacy with God while habitually treating those around us with selfishness, contempt or indifference.

This connection gives us one of the most practical answers to the question of how we learn to love an invisible God. We love him in the people he places before us. Christ identifies himself with those in need: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” The person who needs our patience, attention, forgiveness or help gives us a concrete opportunity to love Christ.

This can be demanding because the people closest to us are not abstractions. They have faults, habits that irritate us and needs that interfere with our plans. It is often easier to imagine loving humanity in general than to respond generously to one particular person who requires our time at an inconvenient moment. Yet it is precisely in these ordinary encounters that supernatural charity becomes real.

As love for God grows, it gradually changes the way we see others. We begin to recognize them not merely according to whether they please us but as persons loved by God and called to eternal life. Their faults remain real, and charity does not require us to pretend otherwise, but their weaknesses no longer define them completely in our eyes.

This transformation also begins to bring order into our emotional life. At first there may be a considerable distance between what we know love requires and what we feel. We may experience strong aversion toward someone whom we know we should treat kindly, or a powerful attraction toward someone from whom prudence requires distance. Virtue allows us to act according to the good even when our emotions pull us elsewhere.

Over time, grace can gradually harmonize our feelings with what is truly good. We may begin to find joy in sacrifices that once seemed burdensome and to appreciate people whom we once found difficult. This harmony is not automatic, nor is it complete in this life, but it is one of the fruits of spiritual maturity.

We should therefore not measure our love for God mainly by how we feel. A person may experience great consolation in prayer and yet remain selfish and impatient with others. Another may feel little consolation but faithfully fulfil difficult duties, forgive injuries and persevere in prayer. The second person may in fact possess a deeper love.

Feelings are not unimportant. God created our emotional nature, and affection can enrich our relationship with him. The saints often expressed intense tenderness toward Christ, Our Lady and the saints. We can desire that our whole person, including our emotions, participate in love. But feelings must be integrated into something deeper rather than made the measure of our spiritual life.

Prayer has a decisive role in this growth. Prayer both expresses our love for God and nourishes it. We should not think that contemplative prayer is empty until we have somehow learned to love God first. We learn to love him partly by spending time with him.

Human friendship offers an analogy. We do not normally become close friends with someone before speaking with him. Friendship grows through presence, conversation, shared experiences and gradually deepening knowledge. Something similar happens in prayer. We place ourselves before God, speak to him, listen to his word and learn to recognize his action in our life.

At the beginning, prayer may be largely discursive. We reflect on the Gospel, consider some truth of faith, speak to Christ about our life and make resolutions. This is genuine prayer. We do not need extraordinary experiences. Mental prayer gradually strengthens faith, hope and charity because it keeps bringing our mind and heart into contact with God.

The Gospels are especially important because they allow us to know Christ as a living Person. Christianity is not first of all adherence to an idea, philosophy, ethical system or set of rules. It is an encounter with Jesus Christ. We cannot love someone we do not know, and the more deeply we come to know Christ, the more personal our faith becomes.

We should therefore read the Gospel not merely to acquire information but to enter the scenes. We can watch Christ speak with the Samaritan woman, forgive the woman caught in adultery, weep at the tomb of Lazarus, welcome children, correct his disciples and give himself in the Last Supper. We begin to discover his heart.

This knowledge gradually becomes friendship. Christ is no longer simply a figure from the past or the subject of theological truths we accept. We begin to speak with him about our work, relationships, difficulties and hopes. We ask what he wants, thank him, seek forgiveness and learn to remain with him even when we have little to say.

The sacraments deepen this communion in a way that prayer alone cannot accomplish. In Baptism we receive divine life. In Confession Christ restores and strengthens that life when it has been wounded by sin. In the Eucharist he gives us himself as food. Our love for God grows above all through grace, not simply through psychological effort.

The Eucharist deserves particular attention because love seeks union with the beloved. In Holy Communion, Christ gives us a form of union more intimate than anything we could create by our own efforts. We receive not merely a symbol of his affection but Christ himself.

Our thanksgiving after Communion can therefore become a privileged school of love. We may not feel anything extraordinary. We can simply recognize who is present and speak to him with faith. We can tell him that we want to love him more, offer him our day and ask him to transform our heart.

The presence of Christ in the tabernacle gives us another opportunity to grow in love. A brief visit to the Blessed Sacrament can seem outwardly uneventful, yet love often grows through simple fidelity. We come because he is there. We give him time not because we always receive a particular feeling in return but because friendship seeks presence.

This is particularly important during periods of dryness. Many people become worried when prayer no longer gives the consolation it once did. They may wonder whether they have lost their love for God. Sometimes dryness can result from distraction, fatigue or spiritual negligence, and we should address these causes when they are present. But the absence of feeling does not necessarily mean the absence of love.

In fact, dryness can purify love. When prayer is consoling, we may unconsciously be attracted partly by the pleasure we receive from it. When consolation disappears and we continue praying because God is worthy of our love, our fidelity can become more selfless. We begin to seek the Giver rather than merely his gifts.

St. Teresa of Avila repeatedly reminds us that “the water is for the plants.” Consolations in prayer are not ends in themselves. Whether God gives sensible devotion or deeper forms of contemplation, these graces are meant to produce fruit in our life. Prayer should make us more capable of loving.

A person who spends long periods in prayer but becomes increasingly irritable, self-absorbed or indifferent to others needs to examine what is happening. Genuine prayer draws us toward God, and union with God should gradually transform the way we live. The test is not whether we have unusual experiences but whether charity is growing.

This does not mean that progress will be smooth. The spiritual life involves struggle. We carry disordered tendencies, wounds, habits and attachments that resist grace. Sometimes we know clearly what love requires and still find ourselves pulled strongly in another direction.

We should not interpret this struggle as proof that our love is unreal. The very effort to choose the good despite contrary impulses can be an act of love. A person who finds forgiveness difficult but continues trying to forgive may be loving more heroically than someone for whom forgiveness comes easily.

Love grows through repeated acts. Just as patience develops by acting patiently and generosity by giving, love for God grows through acts of love. We can make these acts throughout the day: offering our work, accepting an interruption, resisting a temptation, thanking God for something good or turning to him briefly in the midst of activity.

These acts need not be emotionally intense. A simple “Jesus, I love you” can be genuine even when we feel little. Its truth lies not only in our present emotion but in the direction of our will. We are telling him that we want to belong to him and to live according to his love.

We can also learn to see ordinary duties as opportunities for love. Most of our life is not made up of dramatic sacrifices. It consists of work, family responsibilities, conversations, interruptions and small decisions. If love for God is confined to explicitly religious moments, much of our life remains disconnected from him.

Instead, everything can become part of our response. We can work well because our work is an offering to God and a service to others. We can listen patiently because the person before us matters to him. We can care for our health, keep commitments and perform ordinary duties because love seeks to fulfil the responsibilities entrusted to us.

This gives Christian life unity. Prayer is not separated from work, and love of God is not separated from love of neighbour. The same charity that draws us toward Christ in prayer should shape our conduct during the rest of the day.

We also grow in love by learning to receive God’s love. This may sound passive, but it can be difficult. Some people find it easier to think about what they should do for God than to accept that he loves them personally and gratuitously. We may be acutely conscious of our sins and limitations and imagine that God’s love depends upon our performance.

The Gospel teaches something different. God loves us first. The father in the parable of the prodigal son runs to meet his returning child before the son has restored anything. Christ calls sinners, eats with them and gives his life for us “while we were yet sinners.” Grace is gift before it becomes task.

Accepting this does not make conversion unnecessary. Precisely because we are loved, we are called to change. But conversion becomes a response to love rather than an attempt to earn it. We strive for holiness because we belong to God, not in order to persuade him to care about us.

This confidence is essential when we fail. If our love for God were measured by flawless performance, every sin would seem to destroy the relationship completely. Serious sin can indeed rupture communion with God, but his mercy continues to call us back. Confession allows us to return, receive forgiveness and begin again.

Our failures can even teach us humility in love. We discover that we cannot make ourselves holy by sheer determination. We need grace. This dependence does not weaken love; it makes it more truthful.

The saints loved God intensely, but they did not all experience him in the same emotional way. Some received extraordinary consolations, while others passed through long periods of darkness. What united them was not a particular feeling but a deep surrender of themselves to God.

Their example protects us from comparing spiritual experiences. We may hear someone speak of a powerful sense of God’s presence and wonder why our own prayer seems ordinary. God leads souls differently. Our task is not to reproduce another person’s experience but to respond faithfully to the grace given to us.

Contemplation, when God grants it, is a gift that deepens and purifies love. But even the highest forms of prayer are ordered toward charity. We should never become more interested in spiritual experiences than in God himself. Consolation is valuable because it comes from him and helps us love him more, not because it gives us an unusual experience to possess.

This is why prayer and daily life must continually return to one another. Prayer nourishes love, and love proves itself in life. We meet Christ in prayer and then encounter him again in the people and duties of the day. What happens in one sphere should transform the other.

If we want to know whether we are learning to love God, we can therefore look at more than our feelings during prayer. Are we becoming more willing to do his will? Are we more patient with others? Do we return to him more quickly after failure? Are we learning to see our work, relationships and sacrifices as opportunities to give ourselves?

We should not expect perfection immediately. Love grows slowly, often beneath the surface. A person may not notice how much he has changed until a difficult situation reveals that he now responds with greater patience or trust than he would have years earlier.

God himself is the principal teacher in this school of love. The Holy Spirit works within us, purifying our desires and strengthening charity. We cooperate through prayer, the sacraments, obedience, service and the daily struggle to choose the good.

As this work advances, the different dimensions of love become more integrated. What we know to be good, what we choose and what we feel begin to move more harmoniously together. We may come to desire more spontaneously what God desires, although complete harmony will never be achieved perfectly in this life.

The goal is not simply that we become people who perform religious duties correctly. God wants communion. He wants us to know him as Father, to become friends of Christ and to live by the Holy Spirit. The commandments, prayer and sacraments all serve this relationship.

To love God is ultimately to desire union with him and to allow that union to shape everything else. We seek him in prayer, receive him in the sacraments, obey him in our choices and love him in the people around us. These are not separate paths. They are different expressions of one growing charity.

We will sometimes feel great affection and sometimes very little. We will have periods when prayer is easy and others when fidelity requires effort. None of this should surprise us. Human love itself matures beyond the first intensity of emotion, and our relationship with God also passes through stages.

What matters is that we continue turning toward him. We speak with him, receive his grace, try to do his will and begin again when we fail. Through these repeated acts, love becomes deeper and more stable.

We walk, as St. Paul says, “by faith, not by sight.” We cannot yet see God face to face, but faith allows us to know that he is present and that he loves us. Hope keeps us moving toward full communion with him, and charity already allows us to begin sharing his own life.

In the end, we learn to love God because he first teaches us how to love. He reveals himself in Christ, pours his charity into our hearts through the Holy Spirit and gives us countless opportunities to respond. Our part is to remain open to this grace and to exercise the love we have received.

Prayer is therefore never empty simply because our love is still immature. Prayer is one of the places where love is born, purified and strengthened. We come to God as we are, sometimes with affection, sometimes distracted or dry, and we allow him to work within us.

Little by little, the God whom we cannot see becomes the deepest reality of our life. We recognize his presence in prayer, in the Eucharist, in his providence, in our duties and in the people around us. Love for him ceases to be merely an idea and becomes the principle that gives unity and meaning to everything.

Then the words of Christ begin to be fulfilled in us: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” We learn to love God by abiding in the love he has already given us and allowing that love to pass through us to others. As faith, prayer, obedience and charity mature together, God gradually harmonizes our whole person so that loving him becomes not merely something we do, but the deepest orientation of our life.

By the Via Virtutis team
Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash