From November 6, 2005:
"A genuine knowledge of persons is possible only in the oneness of the
union of persons. Love in this highest kind of fulfillment,
therefore, includes knowledge. It is simultaneously a receiving
and a free act. It thus also includes the will and it is the
fulfilllment of desire. But love in its highest perfection is
fully actual only in God; in the mutual love of the Divine Persons, in
the mutual self-giving of Divine Being. Love is the being of God,
the life of God, the essence of God. It is fully adequate and
proportionate to each of the Divine Persons as well as to their unity.
In the finite image that which is one in the divine archetype appears
divided. Here love, knowledge, and will do not coincide, despite
the fact that love contains something of the nature of knowledge and
something of the nature of will. For love cannot be completely
"blind," and love is free. As was previously stated (in following
Duns Scotus), there is nothing that is freer than love, for love
commands not only some individual personal urge or impulse, but the
personal self in its totality."
- St. Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being, translated by Kurt F. Reinhardt, from The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Vol. IX, ICS Publications, 2002, pp. 453-454.
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