There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.
William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

Love, as we read in 1 John 4.7-21, is from God, and we love because he loved us first. Indeed, God is love, and he who dwells in love is dwelling in God, and God in him. Love is a divine energy, uncreated as is the divine light that shone around St Paul on the road to Damascus or in the lives of the great mystics when they were chosen, and privileged, to know the Deity as closely as any mortal may.

Love is not primarily an emotion, hard as this may be for many of us to grasp; it is simply the creative power of God renewing the lives of all he has made. It can be compared to the rays of the sun, which pour out over our solar system without remission or alteration. The clouds can shut out those rays, but the primary action of the sun goes on unimpeded - without the constancy of the sun's heat all life would be extinguished very rapidly. We love best when our minds are at rest, our emotions calm and tranquil, and our souls in such purity of regard that they can take in both the glory of God and the suffering of the world. There is no comment, no judgement, only an unreserved receptivity which can embrace all that comes to us. This state of being is rare in common life, though some of us know it at the peak of a great aesthetic or altruistic experience, when we seem to be lifted above our usual awareness to a participation in the formless glory of eternity. This state of heavenly consciousness is best called bliss, the blessedness of the soul's repose in God's care, where there is perfect joy.

To be sure, there is an emotional response to the love of God: the heart opens in unrestrained praise and a warmth flows from it that not only restores us personally but also passes to all whom we may encounter, whether in person or in thought. And so the love of God infuses the whole world when we serve in the name of God. The essence of prayer is stillness before God. There is no passion, by which I mean a strong emotion that takes control of our minds and dominates our actions, in prayer. Until our emotions are quietened in dedicated contemplation, we cannot pray effectively. It is God who prays through us, not we who use God to influence other people according to our desires, admirable though these may seem to be, at least on the surface. When God is the master, his love pours through us, converting our hearts from stone to organs of flesh, as Ezekiel would put it (Ezek. 36.26). It is then that an affection shows itself, of a very different order to the turbulent infatuation that is miscalled love in most human relationships. Infatuation passes, to be succeeded by indifference or even dislike. The affection of God's love is constant, undemanding and of ever-widening scale, so that eventually no creature falls outside its providence.

And so, to return to William Law's observation, if we pray sincerely for a person, the love of God flowing through us will have its effect in drawing us closer to that person, even if we know him or her only slightly. Indeed, there may have been an initial antipathy between us, but constant prayer will annul it and ultimately transform it to warm affection. However, the matter is one of enlightened praying: we should not want the person to change according to our own desires, in which case we act as subtle spiritual dictators using God for our own purposes. We should enter into the trust of God's more perfect purpose, and merely beam his love into the souls of all those whom we remember in our thoughts, especially when we are quietly set at prayer.

May I know that peace of personal acceptance, Lord, where by I can move beyond emotional attachment to outflowing service according to the demands of the present moment. May I accept myself sufficiently to receive all my fellow creatures with joyful recognition.