THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND THE HUMAN PERSON
As soon as a person thinks about the divinity with a little attention, he experiences a sweet emotion in his heart. It bears witness that God is the God of the human heart. Never has our mind as much delight as in the thought of God. About it, the prince of philosophers [Aristotle] says that the least knowledge of the Divinity is more valuable than the greatest knowledge of other things. Similarly, the smallest beam of the sun is clearer than the biggest beam of the moon and the stars, and is brighter than the moon and the stars taken together. In case a mishap terrifies our heart, immediately it turns to God. Thus we acknowledge that when everything turns bad for us, Divinity alone is good for us. When we are in peril, God alone, our supreme good, can save and protect us.
This delight, this confidence which the human heart naturally experiences cannot but come from the resemblance[1] which exists between the divine Goodness and our soul. It is a great resemblance but a hidden one, an attunement which each one knows but few understand. It is an inner harmony which we cannot deny but we cannot fathom it well. We are created to the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). What does this mean except that we have a very great resemblance with this divine Majesty?
Our soul is spiritual, indivisible and immortal. It understands, wills and wills freely. It is able to judge, reason, know and possess virtues. In this, it resembles God. It resides whole in the whole body and whole in each part of the body, just as the Divinity is whole in the whole world and whole in each part of the world. Man knows himself and loves himself by the acts produced and expressed by his intellect and his will. These acts proceeding from the intellect and will are distinct from one another. However, they reside in and remain inseparably united to the soul and to the faculties from which they proceed. Thus, the Son proceeds from the Father as the expression of his knowledge and the Holy Spirit as mutual love breathed forth and produced by the Father and the Son. Each of the two persons [the Son and the Spirit] is distinct from the other and from the Father. All the same, they are inseparable and united, thus one, same, single, simple, utterly unique and indivisible Divinity.
Besides this relationship based on likeness, there is an unparalleled complementarity between God and humans for their mutual perfection. It does not mean that God can receive any perfection from them. But humans cannot be made perfect except by divine goodness. So too divine goodness cannot exercise so well its perfection outside of itself except in our humanity. The one has an immense need and great capacity to receive the good, while the other has a great abundance and a great inclination to give it. Nothing is so suitable to poverty as generous affluence. So too nothing is so pleasing to generous affluence as destitute poverty. The more goodness abounds, the stronger is the inclination to spread and communicate itself. The more poverty is destitute, the greater is its eagerness to receive like a vacuum eager to be filled up.
There is therefore, a gracious and desirable encounter between abundance and poverty. Our Lord said : It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). If not, we could scarcely say who has greater satisfaction, the affluent one in pouring out and communicating, or the weak, needy one in receiving and taking for oneself. Where there is greater happiness, there is greater satisfaction. Hence, the divine goodness has greater delight in giving graces than we in receiving them. Sometimes mothers have their breasts so full and abundant that they cannot but offer them to some child. Although the child seeks the breast with great eagerness, the nurse gives it with greater eagerness. The suckling child is urged by its necessity, while the nursing mother by her abundance.
The sacred spouse had longed for a holy kiss of union! O: she says, let him kiss me with a kiss ofhis mouth! (Song 1:2). Is there enough relationship, O beloved of the Beloved, between you and your Spouse to come to this union which you and your Spouse long for? Yes, she says, give me this kiss of union, O, dear friend of my soul because you have breasts better than wine, fragrant with sweet smelling perfumes (Song 1:2, 3). The new wine ferments and grows warm in itself by the strength of its goodness. It cannot be kept contained in casks. But your breasts are still better. They press your breasts with continuous transports, pressing their milk which is abundant as if it is necessary to discharge it. In order to attract the children of your heart to come and suck, they spread a scent more attractive than all the fragrance of perfumes. Thus, Theotimus, our emptiness needs divine abundance due to its destitution and need. But divine affluence needs our poverty only because of the excellence of its perfection and goodness. However, goodness does not become better by communicating because it acquires nothing by diffusing itself outside itself; on the contrary, it is giving. But our poverty will remain destitute and wretched if the affluence of goodness does not come to its aid.
Nothing satisfies our human spirit perfectly. Nothing whatever on earth is able to give it fulfillment. Its understanding has an unlimited inclination to know always more. Its will has an unending longing to love and find good. Are not these reasons to exclaim:Indeed, I am not made for this world. There is some supreme good on which I depend. There is an infinite Craftsman who has imprinted in me this unquenchable desire to know and this insatiable hunger which cannot be satisfied. Therefore I must tend and reach out towards him to unite myself and be joined to his goodness. I belong to it and I live for it. Such is the relationship which we have with God.
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[1] The French word convenance is extremely difficult to translate. Kerns translates it as relationship, Ryan congruity. The problem is that relationship implies more than convenance; congruity is philosophical and archaic. Words which could give to some extent the meaning of convenance are: correspondence, attunement, inner harmony, aptness, suitability. We have used resemblance, likeness because St. Francis de Sales in this para refers to Gen 1:26. It seems to be also a complementarity arising from human need and divine generosity.