WE CAN LOSE THE LOVE OF GOD AS LONG AS WE ARE IN THIS MORTAL LIFE
What I am now going to say is not for those special persons whom God, by a very great grace, so keeps and confirms in his love that they never run the risk of losing it. I am speaking to the rest of humankind. To them the Holy Spirit directs these warnings: whoever thinks he is standing firm had better be careful that he does not fall (1 Cor 10:12); hold fast to what you have (Rev 3:11); Be all the more eager to confirm your call by good works (2 Peter 1:10). Following this, he leads them to pray: Do not cast me away from your presence; do not take your Holy Spirit from me (Ps 51:11); and lead us not into temptation (Mt 6:13); that they may work out their salvation with a holy trembling and a sacred fear (Phil 2:12), aware that they are not more constant and strong to preserve God’s love than were the first Angel [Lucifer] with his followers and Judas, who receiving it lost it. Losing it, they lost themselves for ever; no more than Solomon, who having once lost it, has left the whole world in doubt of his damnation; no more than Adam, Eve, David, St. Peter, who although they were children of salvation, yet fell for a while from the love without which there is no salvation. Alas, Theotimus, who then can be sure of keeping safe this sacred love on the voyage of life, since on earth and in heaven so many persons of very great dignity have met with such tragic shipwreck?
But, O eternal God, how is it possible, you will ask, for a person who has the love of God ever to lose it? Where love is, it resists sin. So how does it happen that sin gets in there, for love is strong as death, sharp in combat as hell (Song 8:6). How can the powers of death or hell, that is, of sins, overcome love, which at least equals them in strength, and surpasses them in the help it has by right? How can it be that a reasonable person who has once taken delight in so great a sweetness as that of God’s love, can ever swallow willingly the bitter waters of sin? (Ex 15:23) Children, though only children, when used to being fed with milk, butter and honey, detest the bitterness of wormwood and of aloes, and when forced to take them, they cry even to getting convulsions. Ah then, O true God, how can a person, once united to the goodness of the Creator, abandon him to seek the emptiness of the creature? (Rom 8:20).
My dear Theotimus, the skies are amazed. Their doors shake with horror. (Jer 2:12). The Angels of peace remain lost in astonishment (Isa 33:7), at this enormous misery of the human heart which sets aside a good so worthy of love in order to attach itself to things so unworthy. But have you never seen that small marvel which is known to everyone, though not everyone can explain it? When a barrel full of wine is pierced, the wine will not flow out unless air is let in from above. This does not happen to barrels in which there is already some empty space, for as soon as they are opened the wine runs out. It is true that in this life, even though our hearts are filled with the love of God, yet they are never completely full of it, so that temptation can make this love flow out. But in Heaven, the sweetness of God’s beauty will take hold of our whole mind and the delights of his goodness shall satisfy our wills completely, so that there will be nothing which the fullness of his love will not permeate. No object, were it to penetrate even to our hearts, could ever draw or cause to flow even a single drop of the precious liquor of heavenly love. There will be no possibility of letting in air from above, that is, of deceiving or surprising our mind since it will be immovable as it takes possession of the supreme truth.
Wine that is well strained does not turn sour and ferment. But wine with lees [sediment] in it is likely to do so. With regard to ourselves, so long as we are in this world, our spirits have the lees of a thousand moods and miseries and as a result their love is easily changed and spoilt. But when in Heaven, at the great feast described by Isaiah (25:6) we shall have wine purified from all lees; no longer subject to change, we shall remain inseparably united by love to our supreme good. Here in the half-light of the dawn, we fear that, instead of the Spouse, we may come across some other object that could attract and deceive us. But when we shall find him up above, in his pasture-ground, his resting place at noon (Song 1: 7), there will be no chance of being deceived. His light will be very clear, and his sweetness will hold us so close to his goodness that it will no longer be possible for us to want to separate.
We are like the coral. While in the water of the ocean where it grows, it is a pale green, delicate, sagging and flexible plant. Drawn out from the depths of the sea, as from its mother’s womb, it becomes almost like stone, stiff and unbending, while its colour changes from pale green to a bright red. Similarly, we being still in the sea of this world, where we are born, are subject to extreme changes, liable to be bent this way and that: to the right, which is God’s love, by inspiration, to the left, which is love of earthly things, by temptation. But once taken out of this life, we change from the pale green of our hesitating hopes to the bright red of certain delight. We shall never more be movable but remain forever implanted in eternal love.
To see God and not to love him is impossible. But here below we do not see him. We only get a glimpse of him through the clouds of faith, as in a mirror (1 Cor 13:12). Our knowledge is not so great, and so other objects and apparent good things find their way in unnoticed. Through the obscurities which get mixed with the certainty and truth of faith, they glide in unseen like little foxes, and ruin our vineyard in bloom (Song 2:15).
In brief, Theotimus, when we have charity, our free will is clothed in the wedding garment. We can continue to be dressed in it always, if we want to, by doing good. Or we can take it off, if we like, by sinning.