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habit of these virtues, provided every act is done with an
intense and perfect love, there will be derived from them a
perfect habit that surpasses in perfection any particular act.
In that case, a virtue that has grown into a habit will prevail
over particular acts, and love will then rule and have its way
over that habit itself, never letting any act be done unless it be
directed and handled by it. Thus, virtues are handmaids and
love is their absolute Lord.
There is no way of knowing pure love in and for itself, but we
can make it out through real virtues: only by that means can
we come to know if our love is true or false. It is very difficult to
know what pure love is; however, I shall tell the little that I
know about it.
By pure love we mean disinterested love, a love that has no
other aim than that of pleasing its God, simply because God
deserves it, for being the good God he is. I suppose that pure
love is found essentially in God alone because He is pure love

itself, a pure, ardent love ever aflame in himself and in His
affections. In himself, because he is infinitely loving, issuing
out without ever leaving the two fiery furnaces, that is, the
Heart of the Eternal Father, and Divine Son, and from there is
sent to his creatures. And so, by setting them on fire he
sanctifies them, and by sanctifying them he inflames them
ever more, rendering them, through the continuance of this
love, so pure and spotless that they become for him a garden
of delight, and at this point the soul is so deeply possessed by
God that it cannot know itself outside God, and lives so dead
to its own creatureliness that it seems to be made divine.

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