The first degree to be attained, or step that the soul must take when it enters the way of love, through which it desires to reach God, is to know God in truth.
By “to know God in truth” I mean to know him not just from the externals -- such as the tone conveyed by writing, words, images, or resemblances to anything created -- for this way of knowing something according to the way we speak about it gives a kind of simple knowledge about God. To know God in truth is to know him as he is in himself, to understand his worth, beauty, sweetness, sublimity, power, and goodness, and the supreme Good inherent in him who is the supreme Good. For the way in which a wise person knows something in truth differs from the way a simple person knows only the appearance of truth. To illustrate this, perhaps the following example or comparison might be useful. Suppose two florins, one of gold and one of lead, were lying in the road. A simple person might pick up the gold florin because it was beautiful and shiny, but would not know about the value of gold. The wise person, knowing the truth about gold and lead, would avidly go for the gold florin and pay little attention to the lead one. Similarly, the soul, knowing God in truth, is aware and understands him as good, and not only as good, but as the supreme and perfect Good.
When the first degree of love has been attained, the others will follow, the greatest being the degree of transforming love.
Discovering that God is good, the soul loves him for his goodness. Loving him, it desires to possess him; desiring him, it gives all that it has and can have, even its own self, in order to possess him; and in possessing him, the soul experiences and tastes his sweetness. Possessing, experiencing, tasting God himself, the supreme and infinite sweetness, it enjoys him with the greatest delight.
Then, enamored with the sweetness of the Beloved, the soul desires to hold him; desiring to hold him, it embraces him; embracing him, it binds and weds itself to God, and finds God bound and wedded to itself in the sweetest form of love. Then the power of love transforms the lover into the Beloved and the Beloved into the lover.
-- Blessed Angela of Foligno
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