Love is a righteous turning

What turns your spirit toward love and toward God?

Here are some sage words from Richard Rolle, (+1349), hermit, mystic, writer of devotional works and translator of the Bible.

Love is a righteous turning
from earthly things,
and is joined to God, without departing,
and kindled with the fire of the Holy spirit:
far from defiling,
far from corruption,
bound to no vice of this life.
High above all fleshly lusts,
aye ready and greedy
for the contemplation of God.

In all things not overcome.
The sum of all good affections.
Health of good manners;
goal of the commandments of God;
death of sins; life of virtues.
Virtue whilst fighting lasts,
crown of overcomers.
Mirth to holy thoughts.
Without that, no man may please God;
with that, no man sins.

For if we love God with all our heart,
there is nothing in us through which we serve sin.
Very love cleanses the soul,
and delivers it from the pain of hell,
and from the foul service of sin,
and from the ugly fellowship of the devils;
and out of the fiend's son, makes God's son,
and partner of the heritage of heaven.

We shall force ourselves to clothe us in love,
as iron or coal does in the fire,
as the sir does in the sun,
as the wool does in the dye.
The coal so clothes itself in fire that it is fire.
The air so clothes itself in the sun that it is light.

And the wool so subnstantially takes the dye that it is like it.
In this manner shall a true lover of Jesus Christ do:
his heart shall so burn in love,
that it shall be turned into the fire of love,
and be as it were all fire;
and he shall so shine in virtues
that no part of him shall be murky in vices.