He who truly loves God prays entirely without distraction, and he who prays entirely without distraction loves God truly. But he whose intellect is fixed on any worldly thing does not pray without distraction, and consequently he does not love God. (Maximos the Confessor)

Can we truly love without truly knowing our beloved?

What is required, how long does it take, to know another? How do we ever come to know God, who will - no matter how well we pray - remain profoundly other?

Can we truly love another without some strong sense of self?

Infatuation thrives in mutual illusion. The less we know the other and the less we know ourselves, the more thrilling the encounter.

Last week I heard Karin Armstrong, author of A Biography of God and more, tell how as a seventeen year old nun she could not pray for two minutes before her mind would flit in a dozen different directions.

True love requires self-awareness, self-criticism, and vulnerability to the other. Young love is often excruciatingly vulnerable, but absent the other two criteria.

Love takes time together (here I agree with Maximos). But it is less a matter of intensive time and much more a matter of extended time.

(Editorial Note: My reference copy of the Philokalia has a long lacuna extending from the 49th saying of the First Century by Maximos to the beginning of the Second Century. If you have been following the original text, this explains the sudden leap.)