Rely on Receiving

[F]rom the point of view of the Christian faith, man comes in the profoundest sense to himself not through what he does but through what he accepts. He must wait for the gift of love, and love can only be received as a gift. It cannot be “made” on one’s own without anyone else; one must wait for it, let it be given to one. And one cannot become wholly man in any other way than by being loved, by letting oneself be loved. That love represents simultaneously both man’s highest possibility and his deepest need, and that this most necessary thing is at the same time the freest and most unenforceable, means precisely that for his “salvation” man is meant to rely on receiving. If he declines to let himself be presented with the gift, then he destroys himself. (Introduction to Christianity, Benedict XVI)