IMPERFECT LOVE IS VERY DANGEROUS
Alas, my dear Theotimus, I ask you to look at unfortunate Judas after he betrays his Master (Mt 27:3-4), how he goes to return the money to the Jews, how he admits his sin, how he speaks respectfully of the blood of this immaculate Lamb. These were the effects of the imperfect love left in his heart by the charity he previously had, which has now gone away. A person goes down to impiety by definite degrees, and hardly anyone reaches the depths of wickedness in an instant. Perfumers, even when they are no longer in their shops, carry with them for a long time the scent of the perfumes they have handled. In the same way, those who have been in the rooms of heavenly ointments, that is in most holy charity, keep the scent for some time afterwards.
In whichever place the stag spends the night, there the next morning its scent is still fresh. In the evening, the scent will be caught with difficulty, and as its footprints grow older and harder the hounds gradually lose track of it. When charity has reigned for a time in a soul, one finds there its remnants, its path, its footprints, its scent for some time after it has gone away. But little by little all this disappears in the end and one loses all knowledge that charity was ever there.
We have seen young people well brought up in the love of God who, having gone astray, remained for some time in their miserable, debased condition. One could see in them great signs of their past virtue and the habit acquired in the time of charity resisting present vice. For some months it was difficult to discern whether they were out of charity or not, and whether they were virtuous or vicious. The course of events made it clearly known that these virtuous exercises did not have their origin in present charity but in past charity. They were the result, not of perfect love but of imperfect love, which charity had left on going away as a sign that it had resided in those souls.
Now this imperfect love is good in itself, Theotimus. Being a creature of holy charity and one of its retinue, as it were, it cannot but be good. Indeed, it served charity faithfully while it dwelt in the soul, and is always ready to serve it on its return. It is not to be despised because it cannot do actions of perfect love since that is the condition of its nature. Thus the stars are very imperfect when compared with the sun and yet are extremely beautiful when looked at individually. They have no worth in the presence of the sun but have it in its absence.
Though this imperfect love is good in itself, yet it is dangerous for us. Often we are satisfied with it alone. Having many exterior and interior marks of charity, thinking that it is charity itself that we have, we are misled and consider that we are saints. Living under this false impression, the sins which have deprived us of charity increase, grow great and multiply so fast that in the end they make themselves masters of our heart. If Jacob had not separated himself from his perfect Rachel but had always stayed near her on his wedding day, he would not have been deceived as he was completely surprised the following morning to find that in her place he had only the imperfect Leah, whom he had believed to be his dear Rachel. Laban had tricked him in this way (Gen 29:21-25). Self-love deceives us in the same way. We leave charity for a short while and it thrusts on us this imperfect habit. We find our satisfaction in it as if it was true charity, until some clear light makes us see that we have been deceived.
Ah! My God! is it not a great pity to see a soul flattering itself in this delusion of being holy remaining at rest as if it had charity, only to find in the end that its holiness is empty, and its rest is nothing but sloth and its joy only madness.