Loving God Whom You Don't See

"There is nothing finer, nothing sweeter, than God. Now you are going to tell me: I do not see Him; how am I to love one whom I do not see? Behold how you may learn to love one whom you do not see. I will show you how you may try to see what you cannot behold with these eyes. See, now, you love a friend; what do you love in him? You love him without any return. Perhaps that friend of yours, to omit other facts, is an old man; for you can have an old man as a friend. What do you love in the old man? A crooked body, a white head, the wrinkles on his forehead, his drawn jaw? If it is the body which you see, compared with old age nothing is so ugly; yet you love something, even if you do not love the body which you see because it is ugly. How do you see what you love? For if I were to ask you: Why do you love? you would answer me: The man is faithful. Therefore, you love fidelity. If you love fidelity, God is seen with the same eyes with which fidelity is perceived." (unknown source, in Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 21:4, p. 109)