Love
is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of
itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause
outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the
practice. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul,
love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator
and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be.
For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return. The sole
purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who
love him are made happy by their love of him.
--
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
