Now let us see what we can do to become Saints. The first, the easiest and the most certain of
all means to become a Saint is to love God. We cannot possibly do anything holier, anything more pleasing to Him or anything more meritorious for ourselves.

We must learn all about the Love of God, for nothing is more important and more necessary for us, and nothing more conducive to our happiness.

To love God is the great work of our lives.

THE VALUE OF AN ACT OF LOVE

The value of one simple act of love is priceless. An act of love is of greater value than a thousand acts of any other virtue, just as one small diamond is worth more than a thousand gold pieces.
Our Blessed Lord told Benigna Consolata that any ordinary Christian can make an act of love  in a moment which will have a reward for all eternity. We can make countless acts of love every day without any difficulty.

Secondly, He told her that one act of love gives Him more glory and more pleasure than a thousand horrible blasphemies give Him pain!

Thirdly, love wipes out our sins. One short act of love won for the Thief on the cross the promise that he would be that very day with Christ in Paradise.

On the other hand, all that we do which is not done for the love of God is worthless and will get no reward. We may toil for long years and receive great praise and honor for our labors, but if our work is not done for love of God, it is worthless.

Thus it is that a poor old woman who tells her beads at the church door, who bears her poverty patiently and who lives a quiet Christian life will have a higher place in Heaven than the great statesmen, the clever generals, the famous politicians, who direct the destinies of vast empires but who do not think of offering their work to God.

IS IT EASY TO LOVE GOD?

Most certainly, for God created us expressly to love Him and to love Him with all our hearts and souls. He is goodness itself. He has done everything to make us love Him. One might as well ask if it is easy for a child to love its mother, for a wife to love a dear husband, for a friend to love a friend, for a servant to love a good and generous master.

It is much easier to love God, Who is infinitely good and sweet, God Who loves us tenderly and affectionately, Who is our dearest and most loving Father, our best, our truest Friend. All that is necessary is to realize His goodness.

The first great Commandment, the very essence of our holy Religion, is to "Love God with all our heart and soul; with all our strength and mind." This everyone must do. Surely the all-merciful and wise God would never make the very first condition of His beautiful Religion something hard and difficult.

SOME SAY THAT THEY CANNOT LOVE GOD

There are people who say that they cannot love God. When they make an act of love and say, "Oh my God, I love You," they feel nothing in their hearts to correspond to their words. Their words sound hollow, cold and false. This is what they tell us themselves.

Unfortunately, this happens to many, and as a consequence, they are losing every day of their lives great merits and never experience the wonderful happiness they should enjoy in their Religion.

Why cannot they love God? There are four reasons:

First of all, they never ask God to help them to love Him.

Secondly, they do not realize, as we have said, what God is, His boundless goodness, His
sweetness, mercy and love.

Thirdly, they do not understand how much He loves them.

Fourthly, they have no idea of all that He has done for them. All this we will now explain in detail.
Remark that when speaking of love we do not mean an emotional love, sentimental love; we speak of the solid love of God which comes from a clear, intelligent understanding of how good and sweet God is.

He Himself tells us: "Taste and see how sweet the Lord is," and again, "My yoke is sweet, My burden light."

HOW CAN WE ACQUIRE THE LOVE OF GOD?

First of all by prayer. Let us ask God every day and in every prayer we ever say to make us love Him. Let us offer every good act we do that He may give us this, the greatest of all graces, His blessed love.

In our morning prayers and evening prayers, in our Rosary, at Mass, in our Communions, let it be our first, our most earnest petition, that we may love God. Let us never say any prayer in which this is not our outstanding wish and intention. Our Lord has promised over and over again and in the clearest terms to hear our prayers. He cannot break His word.

There is nothing that God gives us so willingly, so generously as His love. He wishes to give us
this great grace even more than we wish to receive it. All we have to do is ask for it constantly.
It is certain that if we do this, our hearts, no matter how cold they may be, will gradually grow to love Him and that, too, with all their strength. They will overflow with love. They will love Him in the fullest sense of the word.

Have we never thought of this before? Why have we not asked God for this greatest of all gifts and graces? We ask so often for trivial favors and forget the most important of all. We should have been Saints long ago had we done so.

Let us begin at once and ask God every day of our lives with unbounded confidence for His holy love.

The following incidents show how powerful prayer is in making us know and love God.

An American freethinker was eager to believe in God, but though he listened attentively to Cardinal Gibbons explaining the proofs of God's existence, he could not bring himself to believe. The Cardinal, seeing his good will, suggested that he should frequently say the following short prayer: "Oh, God, if You exist, make me know You."

This the freethinker did conscientiously for some time and received in return the gift of a lively and solid faith and with it the greatest happiness of his life.

Cardinal Newman had a similar experience. For many years he sought earnestly to discover the True Church by reading history, studying the works of the Fathers, discussing the subject with learned friends. In vain.

At last he exclaimed: "What have I been doing? I have sought by study and discussion to find the Truth, but I have not given sufficient time and attention to asking the gift of faith from God in prayer."

He at once changed his method and began to ask God earnestly to help him to find the True Church.
His prayers were speedily answered, and he not only saw the light himself but became a shining example to hundreds of others who, following his lead, joined the Catholic Church.

We too shall receive the gift and consolations of God's blessed love if we earnestly ask for it in our daily prayers.

Secondly, to love God we must know Him. Many people have a completely false notion of God. Though they do not say it in so many words, they think of God as a hard, a stern God, a God of justice who punishes sinners. Frequently, the teachers of the young are to blame for this. With the best intentions in the world they instill into the minds of their charges an exaggerated fear of the Almighty in order to deter them from sinning. But they do not teach them to love God.

The result is that boys and girls grow up and live all their lives with a false concept of God; they adore a false God, a God of fear. It is true, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom-----but it must not be only a servile fear, but mainly the filial fear of children who grieve to offend and displease their parents. We too must fear to outrage our loving God, fear to crucify Him again and make a mockery of Him.

Hardened sinners, of course, who obstinately persist in offending God, know full well that their crimes deserve punishment. They have reason to fear.

But for the ordinary Christian, the all-engrossing concept of God must be clearly a God of infinite sweetness, mercy and love, a God of compassion, Who wishes to lift us up and wipe away the stains of sin from our souls.

Above all, we must look on God as our most loving Father, our dearest Friend, a God in Whom we have unbounded confidence, to Whom we must go in all our troubles and whose help we can seek in all our needs.

We must serve God, not as servants, but as His dear children. We adore God, but with an adoration of love, like the Angels in Heaven, who are burning fires of love. The vision of God as He really is and as they see Him fills them with an ocean of joy and happiness.

Now this God, Whom the Angels and Saints see in Heaven, is the same God Whom we are asked to love. Did we see Him for one instant our souls would be so ravished with delight that they would tear themselves from our poor bodies and fly to Him.

Did the devil see God only for a moment, his whole being would be so inundated with happiness that never again could he feel the pains of Hell.

One may object: But we do not see God as the Angels do. That is true, but we know all about Him by our living faith, as surely as the Angels do by vision. We ought sometimes to place ourselves in spirit amidst the Angels and gaze on God, this especially when we are saying the Gloria Patri.

Soon, very soon, we shall see Him as they do, but for the moment let us use and enjoy our faith and thus anticipate the happiness of Heaven.

When one hears that he has inherited a great fortune, the news fills him at once with delight. He does not wait until the fortune is placed in his hands. Let us do likewise and begin to enjoy an anticipation of the immense, unbounded joys that await us in our Father's home.

GOD LOVES US

There is still something more thrilling that should fill us to overflowing with love for God, viz., that God loves us with a personal, intimate, unbounded love. This glorious truth escapes many otherwise good Catholics. Either they do not know it or they do not grasp it. The certainty that the great God of Heaven and Earth loves me with a tender, affectionate love fills my soul with delight.

A husband finds immense happiness in the love of his dear wife. A friend prizes most highly the friendship of a true friend. Were a powerful prince or king to offer us his friendship and esteem, we should look on ourselves as very fortunate. But the Omnipotent God offers us His friendship and love, and we do not seem to accept it! What blindness, what appalling ignorance!

Our Lord offered Peter and John and Paul His love and friendship, and they accepted it. What happiness was not theirs! They became His great Apostles. He is offering it to us every day in the most pressing way. Why do we not accept it? What happiness are we not losing!

Let us convince ourselves that God is our dearest Friend, our most loving Father. Let us try to bring home to ourselves this wonderful truth. Has He not commanded us to call Him every day, "Our Father"? He means it. He asks for our love. He does not wait to love us in Heaven; He loves us now on Earth and wishes to be loved in return by us.

IN A WORD

To love God is to be a Saint, and the more we love God, the greater Saints we shall be.

There is nothing easier than to love the God of infinite goodness and sweetness, the God Who loves us with a personal, intimate, infinite love.

We shall most certainly love God if in all our prayers we ask Him for His blessed love. If we know God, we must love Him. Therefore, we must do all we can to know God and fully to understand all the wonderful things that He has done for us.