“Freely we serve
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.”

“Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.”

“Love is always bestowed as a gift!
freely, willingly, and without expectation….
We don't love to be loved, we love to love”

“we unwittingly project onto God our own attitudes and feelings toward ourselves… But we cannot assume that He feels about us the way we feel about ourselves -- unless we love ourselves compassionately, intensely, and freely.”

“We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.”

“If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without proof. And of course that is the only way it could be. If it could be somehow proved, then we would have no choice but to believe. We would lose our freedom not to believe. And in the very moment that we lost that freedom, we would cease to be human beings. Our love of God would have been forced upon us, and love that is forced is of course not love at all. Love must be freely given. Love must live in the freedom not to love; it must take risks. Love must be prepared to suffer even as Jesus on the Cross suffered, and part of that suffering is doubt.”

“I love and am loved, fully and freely, nothing expected, more than enough received.”

“If we must love God, and love him more than ourselves and our neighbor, it is because love exists before us and because we are issued from it; we love by virtue of our very existence.”

“You owe yourself the love that you so freely give to other people.”

“We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.”