And so, in this little letter, she invites us to enter with her the "peaceful and profound sea" found in the words "God is Love." Elsewhere, both in her Dialogue and in a letter to one Brother Matteo Tolomei, she analyses with keen insight the relations which redeemed humanity can bear to the Loving God; she tells us how the servant, obedient through fear, may become the friend, obedient through gratitude and desire for spiritual blessings; and how these lower loves, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, may be transformed into the love of the son, who seeks God for His own sake, "with nothing between." And how shall human love, when it has reached this point, reflect the love of Him who "needs not man's work nor His own gifts?" How become, not merely receptive, but active and creative? Catherine gives the simple Christian answer: "God has loved us without being loved, but we love Him because we are loved.... We cannot be of any profit to Him, nor love Him with this first love. Yet God demands of us, that as He has loved us without any second thoughts, so He should be loved by us. In what way can we do this, then, since He demands it of us and we cannot give it to Him? I tell you: through a means which He has established by which we can love Him freely, and without the least regard to any profit of ours: we can be useful, not to Him, which is impossible, but to our neighbour.... To show the love we have to Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature.... Every virtue receives life from love, and love is gained in love, that is, by raising the eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love.... So thou seest that we conceive virtues through God and bring them to the birth for our neighbour." Thus do Catherine's loftiest meditations end on the practical note. Her fundamental thought, here as elsewhere, is strikingly akin to the thought of St. Bernard. Love yourself not for your own sake, but for God! she constantly repeats. To the same effect, Bernard describes at length the progress of the soul till it reaches the highest stage, in which self-love is so lost that even gratitude is left behind, and man loves himself and God for the sake of God alone. In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary: