A WAY OF RECOGNIZING CHANGE CONCERNING HOLY LOVE
You recognize it well, Theotimus. If the mystic nightingale sings to please God, it will sing the canticle which will be most pleasing to the divine providence. However if it sings to please itself by its own melodious singing, it will not sing the canticle most pleasing to the heavenly goodness but that which is most pleasing to itself and from which it expects to draw most pleasure. Of the two canticles, both of which will be truly divine, it can well be that one will be sung because it is divine and the other because it is pleasing. Rachel and Leah are equally Jacob’s wives. But one was loved by him merely as wife, the other as a beautiful woman. The canticle is divine but the motive for singing is the spiritual delight which we draw from it.
“Don’t you see", one could tell this bishop, “that God wants you to sing the pastoral song of his love among your flock?" In virtue of his holy love he commands you three times to feed, in the person of great St. Peter who was the first of the pastors. What is your answer? That at Rome or Paris there are greater spiritual delights and that there we can practise divine love with more sweetness?" O God, it is not to please you that this man wants to sing but for the pleasure he takes from his own song. It is not you for whom he searches in love but the satisfaction found in the practices of holy love.
The religious priests would like to sing the song of the diocesan priests, married folk the song of the religious so that they say this they can love and serve God better. Oh, you are mistaken, my dear friends. Do not say that it is to love and serve God better! Oh, not at all! It is to serve your own self satisfaction which you love more than pleasing God. The will of God is found in illness as well and almost usually better than in health. Hence if we love health better, let us not say that it is to serve God so much better. For who does not see that it is health that we seek for in God’s will, and not God’s will in health?
It is difficult, I admit, to see with pleasure the beauty of a mirror for very long without looking at oneself in it. Yes, without seeking pleasure in looking at oneself. However, there is difference between pleasure one takes at looking at the mirror because it is beautiful and satisfaction one takes to look in the mirror simply because he sees himself in it. Certainly it is also hard to love God without loving to some extent the pleasure we take in his love. Nevertheless there is also a great difference between the satisfaction we take in loving God because of his beauty and that in loving him because of his love that is pleasing to us. We need to strive to seek in God only love of his beauty and not the pleasure found in the beauty of his love. If one prays to God and be aware that he is praying, he is not perfectly attentive to his prayer. It is because he has taken his mind away from God to whom he prays in order to think of the prayer by which he prays. The care we take not to have any distraction is often our greatest distraction. Simplicity is the most recommendable way in spiritual activities. Do you wish to contemplate God? Then turn your gaze on him, and be attentive to that. If you reflect upon and turn your eyes upon yourself to see how you look when you look at him, then it is not God that you contemplate, but your own behaviour; it is yourself. The one who is in fervent prayer does not know whether he is praying or not. He does not think of the prayer that he makes but of God to whom he makes it. He who is aglow with holy love does not turn his heart back on himself to see what he is doing. But he keeps it fixed on God. He keeps himself occupied with the God whom he loves. The heavenly singer takes much joy in pleasing God that he takes no pleasure in his melodious voice unless it pleases his God.
Theotimus, why do you think that Ammon, David’s son, loved Tamar so desperately that he even would die of love? (2 Kg 13). Do you think that it was Tamar herself whom he loved? You would see soon that he was not. As soon as he had satisfied his detestable desire, he mercilessly sent her out and rejected her shamefully. If he had loved Tamar he would not have done this. Tamar was always Tamar. Since it was not Tamar whom he loved but the shameful pleasure that he looked for in her, as soon as he had what he wanted, he struck her wickedly and treated her brutally. His pleasure was in Tamar but his love was for the pleasure and not for Tamer. Therefore, once pleasure is over, he wanted Tamar to quit. Look at the man who apparently prays to God with such devotion and is so fervent in the practices of heavenly love. But wait a little and you will see if it is God whom he loves. Alas, as soon as the delight and satisfaction he look in love leaves him and dryness comes, he would quit everything and pray only occasionally. But if it was God whom he loved, why did he stop to love, since God is always God? It is therefore the consolation of God that he loved, and not the God of consolation (2 Cor 1:3).
Many people indeed take no delight in divine love unless it is filled with the sugar of some sensible sweetness. They would, like little children, willingly take when someone gives them a piece of bread with honey on it. They lick and suck out the honey and then throw away the bread. If the sweetness were to be separated from the love, such people would leave the love and take only the sweetness. It is because they follow love for the sake of sweetness and when they do not find it they don’t take love into account. But such people are exposed to many dangers. They either turn back when tastes and consolations fail them or they amuse themselves with vain delight which is far from true love. They mistake the honey of Heraclea for that of Narbonne.[1]
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[1] The honey of Narbonne was considered to be one of the best in Europe whereas that of Heraclea was of inferior quality.