His love precedes our action

God has already given us His love, the fruit. It is not we who must produce the abundant fruit; Christianity is not moralism, it is not we who must do all that God expects from the world; rather, we must first of all enter into the ontological mystery: God gives Himself. His being, His love, precedes our action and, in the context of His Body, in the context of being in Him and identified with Him, ennobled with His Blood, we too can act with Christ.

~ Pope Benedict XVI, Lectio Divina on the Feast of Our Lady of Trust, Major Pontifical Seminary of Rome