HOW THE ETERNAL LOVE OF GOD TOWARDS US PREDISPOSES OUR HEARTS TO LOVE HIM THROUGH HIS INSPIRATION
I have loved you with an everlasting love. Hence I have attracted you feeling pity and mercy for you. I will rebuild you again and you shall be rebuilt, O Virgin of Israel! (Jer 31:3-4). These are the words of God. Through them, he promises that the Saviour coming into the world will establish a new kingdom in his Church. She will be his Virgin Spouse and true spiritual Israelite. You see, Theotimus, he saved us not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy (Titus 3:5). It is this age-old and eternal charity which moved his divine Providence to draw us to himself. If the Father had not drawn us, we would never have come to the Son our Saviour (Jn 6:44). Consequently we would never have attained salvation.
There are some birds, Theotimus, which Aristotle calls apodes.[1] They have very short legs and feet without strength. So they do not make use of them any more than if they had none at all. If it happens that they alight on the ground, they remain caught there without ever being able to fly again. As they are unable to use either the legs or the feet, they do not have any means whatever of giving a thrust and launching themselves back into the air. Hence they remain there unable to move and die unless a favourable wind comes to assist their inability. The wind sends its gusts on the surface of the ground. It seizes them and lifts them up as it does with many other things. Then they may use their wings and cooperate with this thrust, this first impulse which the wind gives them. If so, the same wind continues to help them, lifting them more and more in their flight.
Theotimus, there are birds we call birds of Paradise because of their beauty and rarity. We never see them on earth except when dead. The angels are similar to them. For, these heavenly spirits did not abandon divine love except to attach themselves to their own selfish love of themselves. Immediately they fell as though dead, buried in hell. The death in humans separates them forever from this mortal life. The fall of the angels separates them forever from eternal life. We human beings are similar to the apodes. We may quit the air of holy divine love to take to the earth and attach ourselves to creatures. This is what we do each time we offend God. If it happens, we die indeed. But it is not a total death. Some little movements remain with us along with our legs and feet. It means that we can make some feeble affections. We can make some efforts to love. All the same, they are so weak that we are unable to detach our hearts from sin by ourselves. We are unable to launch ourselves again into the flight of divine love. We gave it up disloyally and willingly.
In fact, we deserved to be left forsaken by God since we have abandoned him by this unfaithfulness. But his eternal love does not often allow his justice to decree this punishment. It intensifies his compassion and arouses him to save us from our misfortune. He does this by sending the favourable wind of his most holy inspirations. It comes into our hearts with a gentle force. It seizes and moves them. It raises our thoughts and elevates our affections into the atmosphere of divine love.
This first impulse or shock which God gives to our hearts to stimulate us to what is good for us is certainly caused in us but not by us. Unforeseen, it comes to us before we have ever thought of it or could think of it. It is because, Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, to think of anything which concerns our salvation, but all our competence is from God (2 Cor 3:5).30 He has loved us before we existed but also that we might come into existence and that we be holy (Eph 1:4). To realize it, he predisposes us with the blessings of his fatherly loving kindness (Ps 20:4). He arouses our spirits to urge them to holy repentance and conversion.
See, I entreat you, Theotimus, the poor prince of the apostles was benumbed by sin in the night of the sorrowful passion of his Master. He did not think any more of repenting of his sin, as if he never knew his divine Master. He was like a miserable apode fallen to the ground. He would not have raised himself up, had not the cock as an instrument of divine Providence struck his ears by its crowing. The gentle Redeemer cast a salvific glance at him like an arrow of love. It pierced his heart of stone which soon after gave so much water [he wept bitterly] (Lk 22:55-62), similar to the rock of old which was struck by Moses in the desert. See, again, this holy apostle sleeping in Herod’s prison bound by two chains. He is there to be a martyr. Nonetheless, he symbolizes a miserable man who sleeps in the midst of his sins, a prisoner and slave of Satan. Alas, who will deliver him? The angel comes down from heaven. He strikes on the side of the great St. Peter, the prisoner, awakes him saying: Quick, get up (Acts 12:6, 7). Inspiration comes from heaven like the angel. It strikes at the heart of the unfortunate sinner, awakens him so that he arises from his iniquity.
The human spirit feels this first emotion and shock when God prepares it for love. He awakens it, motivates it with love to abandon sin and return to him. It is not only this shock but also an awakening that takes place in us and for us. But is it not true, Theotimus, that all these are not done by us? We are awakened but awakened not by ourselves. It is inspiration that has awakened us. And to awaken us, it has stirred and shocked us. I was sleeping, said this devoted spouse and for my Beloved, my heart kept vigil (Song 5:2).[2] Here, he is! He awakens me, calling me tenderly with love. I hear him well. It is he, his voice. God calls us and awakens us with a start, unexpectedly, by his most holy inspiration. At the beginning of heavenly grace, we do nothing except feel this stirring “which God causes in us", as says St. Bernard, but “without us."
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[1] Apode or apod is a term applied to birds, fish and reptiles, in which feet or ventral fins are either absent or only rudimentary (The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). Here the reference is to the rudimentary feet of the sea-swallow (Kerns, TLG, p.71).
[2] Literally, the text means, My Beloved who is my heart kept vigil. To avoid misunderstanding and to accord with Song 5:2, we have translated as for my Beloved.