Love is, as it seems to me, a right will turned utterly away from all earthly and present things, joined to God inseparably and made one with him, kindled by a certain fire of the Holy Spirit, from whom it is, and to whom it is referred; foreign to all defilement, incapable of being corrupted, subject to no vice of mutability, exalted above all things that are loved carnally, most powerful of all affections, greedy for divine contemplation, ever unconquered in all things; the summit of good actions, the health of morals, the end of the heavenly precepts, the death of crimes, the life of virtues, the strength of those who fight, the palm of the victors, the soul of holy minds, the cause of good merits, the reward of the perfect.
It raises up those dead in their sins, heals the sick, restores the lost, breathes hope into the desperate, dwells in peaceful minds; fruitful in the penitent, glad in those advancing, glorious in those persevering, victorious in martyrs, active in absolutely all the faithful. Faith conceives it, to it hope runs, to it the progress of all is subservient, out of it whatever there is of good work lives; under it obedience grows, through it patience conquers, on account of it devout religion despises carnal allurements; without it no one has pleased God; with it no one has been able to sin, nor will be able. This is true love, genuine, perfect; which the holy Apostle names a more excellent way (1 Cor. 12:31).
And truly it is itself the way which leads those who walk by it to the homeland: because, just as without a way no one arrives at where he is going, so without love—which is called a way—men cannot walk, but only go astray.