Catholic Wisdom

In a word, He has loved us as long as He is God, and that is from all eternity. The heroic virgin Saint Agnes was right when she said to those who would offer her other loves and draw her affections to things of this world, "Another Lover has come before you." O world, and every creature here below, I cannot love you! Since God has loved me first, it is no more than right and just that I should give and consecrate, and not withdraw, my heart to Him Who first loved me!

—Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, on "the Virtue of Charity," in Twelve Steps, 49.