On the Morals of the Catholic Church

¹³ Let us see how the Lord Himself in the gospel has taught us to live; how, too, Paul the apostle,— for the Manichæans dare not reject these Scriptures. Let us hear, O Christ, what chief end You prescribe to us; and that is evidently the chief end after which we are told to strive with supreme affection. "You shall love," He says, "the Lord your God." Tell me also, I pray You, what must be the measure of love; for I fear lest the desire enkindled in my heart should either exceed or come short in fervor.

"With all your heart," He says. Nor is that enough. "With all your soul." Nor is it enough yet. "With all your mind." What do you wish more? I might, perhaps, wish more if I could see the possibility of more. What does Paul say on this? "We know," he says, "that all things issue in good to them that love God." Let him, too, say what is the measure of love. "Who then," he says, "shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?" We have heard, then, what and how much we must love; this we must strive after, and to this we must refer all our plans.

The perfection of all our good things and our perfect good is God. We must neither come short of this nor go beyond it: the one is dangerous, the other impossible.