St. Francis de Sales

HOW CHARITY PRODUCES LOVE OF NEIGHBOR
By St Francis de Sales 4
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Just as God has created “us in his image and likeness,” so also has he
ordained for us a love in the image and likeness of the love due to his divinity.
He says: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your
whole soul, and with your whole mind.” This the greatest and the first
commandment. and the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.”… Why do we love God? “The reason for which we love God is God
himself.” says St. Bernard, as if to say that we love God because he is the most
supreme and most infinite goodness. Why do we love ourselves in charity?
Surely, it is because we re God’s image and likeness.

Since all persons have this same dignity, we also love them as ourselves,
that is, in their character is most holy and living images of the divinity. It is in
this character…that we are related to God by such close alliance and such loving
dependence that nothing prevents him from saying that he is our Father and
from calling us his children. It is in this character that we are capable of being
united to his divine essence by enjoyment of his supreme goodness and bliss. It
is in this character that we receive his grace and our spirits are associated with
his most holy Spirit, and as it were “are made partakers of his divine nature,” as
St. Leo says.

Hence, the same charity that produces acts of love of God produces at the
same time those of love of neighbor. Just as Jacob saw that one and the same
ladder touched heaven and earth and equally served the angels both to descend
and to ascend, so also we know that one and the same dilection reaches out to
cherish both God and neighbor. Thus it raises us up to unite our spirit with God
and it brings us back again to loving association with our neighbors. However,
this is always on condition that we love our neighbors in as much as they are
God’s image and likeness, created to communicate with the divine goodness, to
participate in his grace, and to enjoy his glory…

To love our neighbor in charity is to love God in the human being or the
human being in God. It is to cherish God alone for love of himself and creatures
for love of him. When we see our neighbor created in the likeness and image
of God, should we not say to one another, “Stop, do you see this created being,
do you see how it resembles the Creator?” Should we not cast ourselves upon
him, caress him, and weep over him with love? Should we not give him a
thousand, thousand blessings? Why so?… It is for love of God who made us in
his own image and likeness and therefore capable of sharing in his goodness in
grace and glory.

4 On the Love of God, Tan Books & Pub. Inc., 1975, pp. 170-171.