"We believe because we love." St John Henry Newman on faith and love.

Faith and hope are means by which we express our love: we believe God's word, because we love it; we hope after heaven, because we love it. We should not have any hope or concern about it, unless we loved it; we should not trust or confide in the God of heaven, unless we loved Him. Faith, then, and hope are but instruments or expressions of love; but as to love itself, we do not love because we believe, for the devils believe, yet do not love; nor do we love because we hope, for hypocrites hope, who do not love. But we love for no cause beyond itself: we love, because it is our nature to love; and it is our nature, because God the Holy Ghost has made it our nature. Love is the immediate fruit and the evidence of regeneration. | Excerpt from Sermon 21. Faith and Love, Saint John Henry Newman.

https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume4/sermon21.html 

Faith is not just a matter of logic or intellectual assent, but is rooted in a deep, personal love for God and His teachings. This love motivates us to embrace and trust in what we believe.

Commenting on the following passage from Scripture, Saint John Henry Newman provides an orientation for personal and corporate spiritual discipline that can orient our attempts to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and build up the body of Christ in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).

Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have no charity, I am nothing. 1 Cor. 13:2

Love as the Foundation

Saint John Henry Newman believed that faith is not something that can be forced or imposed; it must arise from a genuine love for God. This love creates a desire to know and trust God, leading to a willingness to accept and believe in His teachings.

Saint John 14 

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

18 “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

25 “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.

Faith and Love are Intertwined

For Newman, faith and love are inseparable. He argued that faith without love is incomplete and ultimately ineffective. Love is the source of faith, and faith is the expression of love.

Love as a Motivating Force

Newman saw love as the driving force behind our belief and our actions. When we love God, we are motivated to follow His commands, to seek His guidance, and to live in accordance with His will.

And thus I answer the question concerning the connection of love and faith. Love is the condition of faith; and faith in turn is the cherisher and maturer of love; it brings love out into works, and therefore is called the root of works of love; the substance of the works is love, the outline and direction of them is faith. | Sermon 21. Faith and Love, Saint John Henry Newman.

Love as the Goal

Ultimately, Newman believed that love is the highest good and the ultimate goal of our earthly journey. Love unites us with God and with each other.

Moreover it is plain, that, while love is the root out of which faith grows, faith by receiving the wonderful tidings of the Gospel, and presenting before the soul its sacred Objects, the mysteries of the faith, the Holy Trinity, and the Incarnate Saviour, expands our love, and raises it to a perfection which otherwise it could never reach. | ibid.

Holiness & Outreach

Saint John Henry Newman provides us with the following insights that may also provide a perspective and orientation for all evangelization activities, i.e., those faithed or graced activities that attract others to love God and neighbour.

How do we cultivate the soil of our souls in order to give reason for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15)? We ask for and cooperate with grace to allow the seed of God's word to take root and grow.

Love, then, is the seed of holiness, and grows into all excellences, not indeed destroying their peculiarities, but making them what they are. A weed has stalk, leaves, and flowers; so has a sweet-smelling plant; because the latter is sweet-smelling, it does not cease to have stalk, leaves, and flowers; but they are all pleasant, because they come of it. In like manner, the soul which is quickened with the spirit of love has faith and hope, and a number of faculties and habits, some of which it might have without love, and some not; but any how, in that soul one and all exist in love, though distinct from it; as stalk, leaves, and flowers are as distinct and entire in one plant as in another, yet vary in their quality, according to the plant's nature. | ibid.

With the skill of a Doctor of the Church (may he be recognized so soon!), Saint John Henry articulates the faith of the Church and clarifies the supremacy of love, the love shaped in the soul by God Who is love (1 John 4:8).

But here it may be asked, whether Scripture does not make faith, not love, the root, and all graces its fruits. I think not; on the contrary, it pointedly intimates that something besides faith is the root, not only in the text, but in our Lord's parable of the Sower; in which we read of persons who, "when they hear, receive the word with joy," yet having no "root," [Luke 8:13] fall away. Now, receiving the word with joy, surely implies faith; faith, then, is certainly distinct from the root, for these persons receive with joy, yet have "no root." However, it is allowable to call faith the root, because, in a certain sense at least, works do proceed from it. And hence Scripture speaks of "faith working by love," which would imply in the form of expression that faith was prior to love. And again: in the chapter in which the text occurs, we read of "faith, hope, and charity," an order of words which seems to imply that faith precedes love, or charity. And again, St. Paul says elsewhere, "The end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned;" [1 Tim. 1:5] where faith is spoken of as if it were the origin of love.

This must be granted then; and accordingly a question arises, how to adjust these opposite modes of speaking; in what sense faith is the beginning of love, and in what sense love is the origin of faith; whether love springs from faith, or faith from love, which comes first, and which last. I observe, then, as follows:

Faith is the first element of religion, and love, of holiness; and as holiness and religion are distinct, yet united, so are love and faith. Holiness can exist without religion; religion cannot exist without holiness. Baptized infants, before they come to years of understanding, are holy; they are not religious. Holiness is love of the Divine Law. When God regenerates an infant, He imparts to it the gift of His Holy Spirit; and what is the Spirit thus imparted but the Law written on its heart? Such was the promise, "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." And hence it is said, "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." [Heb. 8:10; 1 John 5:3] God comes to us as a Law, before He comes as a Lawgiver; that is, He sets up His throne within us, and enables us to obey Him, before we have learned to reflect on our own sensations, and to know the voice of God. Such, as if in a type, was Samuel's case; he knew not who it was who called him, till Eli the priest told him. Eli stands for religion, Samuel for holiness; Eli for faith, Samuel for love. | ibid.

For the salvation of souls.

Formed in love by the Holy Ghost, the Love of the Father and the Son, and thus made alive in Christ, we become the icons of truth, goodness and beauty of God that the world so desperately needs. The world is a cold and dark place without the fire and light of the Christian witness to God's love and mercy, the mercy of love and life eternal.