What is the love of god?

Simone Weil, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Simone Weil answers

The love of God is not a state of the soul. This is the first thing to say, because almost everything that passes under that name is a state — a warmth, a consolation, a felt proximity — and states come and go with the weather of the body and the circumstances of life. What does not come and go is a direction.¹ If the soul remains turned toward God even while the nail pierces it, that is love; if it turns away the moment affliction strikes, it was not love but its comfortable imitation.

God crosses the universe to come to us; we cannot take a single step toward him.² We cannot progress vertically. The infinity of space and time separates us, and no effort of will, no accumulation of devotion, closes that distance by one fraction. What happens instead is this: God comes at his own time, like a beggar returning again and again to a door, and we have only the power to consent or to refuse.³

If we consent, he places a seed in us and withdraws. From that moment, neither he nor we have anything further to do except wait — and not regret the consent we gave.⁴ The growth of that seed is painful, because it destroys whatever stands in its way, and what stands in its way is woven into our very flesh.⁵ This is why affliction is not merely suffering, not a divine educational method — it is the condition under which the screen between the soul and God can be pierced.⁶

Necessity, wretchedness, the crushing weight of labour and of violent death: these constitute divine love, because it is God who in love withdraws from us so that we can love him.⁷ Were we exposed to the direct radiance of his love without the protection of space and time and matter, we should be evaporated like water in the sun; there would not be enough I in us to make the surrender of the I possible.

The soul that has consented all the way through does not, in the end, love like a creature with created love. The love within it is divine, uncreated — it is the love of God for God passing through the soul.⁸ God alone is capable of loving God; we can only consent to give up our own feelings so as to allow free passage.⁹ We were created solely in order to give this consent.

Before that final passage, love has three indirect objects, the only three things in which God is really though secretly present: religious ceremonies, the beauty of the world, and our neighbour.¹⁰ These are not lesser loves to be outgrown; they are the forms love necessarily takes during the long preparation, and their virtue is exactly equivalent — it depends on circumstance and vocation which enters the soul first.¹¹

The soul that loves its neighbour truly, or that genuinely attends to the beauty of the world, is already loving God, though it may not know the name of what it loves. He whose soul remains turned toward God though the nail pierces it finds himself nailed to the very centre of the universe — the point of intersection of creation and its Creator, which is the point of intersection of the arms of the Cross.¹²

Sources

It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls into despair at the first onslaught of affliction.
Waiting for God, pp. 149–152
The infinity of space and time separates us from God. How can we seek for him? How can we go towards him? Even if we were to walk for endless centuries we should do no more than go round and round the world.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
Over the infinity of space and time the infinitely more infinite love of God comes to possess us. He comes at his own time. We have the power to consent to receive him or to refuse. If we remain deaf he comes back again and again like a beggar, but also, like a beggar, one day he stops coming.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
We have only not to regret the consent we gave, the nuptial Yes.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
the growth of the seed within us is painful. Moreover, from the very fact that we accept this growth we cannot avoid destroying whatever gets in its way, pulling up the weeds, cutting the grasses; and unfortunately they are part of our very flesh, so that this gardening amounts to a violent operation.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
But affliction is not suffering. Affliction is something quite different from a divine educational method.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
Relentless necessity, wretchedness, distress, the crushing burden of poverty and of labour which wears us out, cruelty, torture, violent death, constraint, disease—all these constitute divine love. It is God who in love withdraws from us so that we can love him.
Gravity and Grace, pp. 32–33
The soul does not love like a creature, with created love. The love within it is divine, uncreated, for it is the love of God for God which is passing through it.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
God alone is capable of loving God. We can only consent to give up our own feelings so as to allow free passage in our soul for this love. That is the meaning of denying oneself.
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, p. 94
The implicit love of God can have only three immediate objects, the only three things here below in which God is really though secretly present. These are religious ceremonies, the beauty of the world, and our neighbor.
Waiting for God, pp. 149–152
These indirect loves have a virtue that is exactly and rigorously equivalent. It depends on circumstances, temperament, and vocation which is the first to enter the soul.
Waiting for God, pp. 149–152
He whose soul remains ever turned toward God though the nail pierces it finds himself nailed to the very center of the universe. It is the true center; not it is beyond space and time; it is God... This point of intersection is the point of intersection of the arms of the Cross.
Waiting for God, pp. 149–152