Attachment to Being Comes First

     Fear is not a human being's first sentiment. It is attraction. Fear emerges only as a second moment, as a reflex to a perceived danger that this attraction may be fleeting. Attachment to being, to life, awe in front of the evidence comes first: only after this is it possible for one to fear that this evidence might vanish, that the presence might not be yours, that the attraction you feel might not be fulfilled. You do not fear losing things which do not interest you. Rather, you fear losing things which have to interest you first.
     Religiosity is, first of all, the affirmation and development of the attraction.

Luigi Giussani, The Religious Sense (ch. 10)