God's love has well been described as a sphere whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is at infinity or nowhere. The same truth is aptly illustrated by Our Lord's metaphor for divine charity, which compares it to a fire: 'I came to send fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled;' 'Let your light shine before men;' 'Let your lamps be burning in your hands.'
" It is by keeping alive and fostering in our own hearts the fire of God's love, the light of God's truth, that we shall most effectually diffuse light and warmth to others. Spontaneously, and without conscious effort on our part, the light will shine from us, and the warmth radiate from us, we shall make ourselves felt without knowing it; 'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth.'
"St. Paul knows nothing of the altruism which saves others and cares not to save itself; which seeks for others a vague, undefined happiness, unknown, unsought for, unvalued by itself; which throws itself into labors involving patience, self-conquest, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and all virtues, before these virtues have been rooted, grown, and mature in itself.
"Seeketh not her own. To seek the good of others is therefore the outcome, the fruit, the proof, the manifestation of charity, but it is not the substance. Charity is the personal, love of God, our Lord, the wedding-garment of the soul, the treasure
