OUR BENEVOLENT LOVE PROMPTS US TO INVITE ALL THE CREATURES TO PRAISE GOD
The heart is taken up and urged by the desire to praise divine goodness more than it is able to do. After various attempts it goes out of itself to invite all the creatures to assist it in its resolve. We see the three children in the furnace doing it. In this admirable Canticle of praises, they summon up all that is in heaven, on earth and under the earth to give praise to the eternal God supremely praising and glorifying him (Dan 3:51 ff). Likewise, the glorious Psalmist, touched to the core by a spiritual yet unregulated emotion, was carried off to praise God. He goes on leaping from heaven to the earth and from the earth to heaven without order. He calls in disarray the angels, fishes, mountains, waters, dragons, birds, serpents, fire, hail, mist. By his desire, he gathers together all the creatures so that all together in harmony they glorify their Creator devoutly. Some extol divine praises by themselves, others offer an occasion to praise God by their marvellous varied characteristics. The greatness of their Maker is revealed in them (Ps 148). Thus this divine, royal Psalmist composed a great number of Psalms with the title: Praise God. He went among all the creatures inviting them to praise the divine Majesty. He had gone through a variety of means and instruments suitable to celebrate the praises of this eternal goodness. Finally, as if failing in breath, he concluded all his sacred Psalmody with this ecstatic exclamation: Let everything that breathes praise the Lord (Ps 150: 6). It means: All that lives and breathes, live or breathe only to praise the Creator in keeping with the encouragement he had given elsewhere:
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together (Ps 34:1,2,3).
Thus the great St. Francis [of Assisi]sang the Canticle of the Sun and a hundred other [hymns of] praise. He invited the creatures to come to strengthen his heart completely worn out. Due to this fatigue, he could not praise the Saviour of his soul as he wished. Similarly the heavenly bride felt almost fainting by the vehement efforts she made to praise and glorify the beloved King of her heart: Ah, she cries to her companions , this divine Spouse has led me to his cellars of wine by contemplation (Song 2:4). He made me taste the incomparable delights of the perfections of his excellence. I am steeped in and spiritually inebriated to such an extent in this delight that I have taken in this abyss of beauty. So my spirit goes on languishing. It is wounded by a desire that is lovingly mortal. It urges me to praise for ever such supreme goodness. Alas! I implore you, come to the aid of my heart which is now going to faint: Kindly sustain it and support it with [cushions] of flowers and surround it with apples. Otherwise it will fall into swoon (Song 2:5).
The delight draws within the heart divine sweetness. The soul fills itself with it so ardently that it is overwhelmed with delight. Benevolent love makes our heart come out of itself [ecstasy] and makes it breathe out vapours of sweet smelling perfumes, I mean, all kinds of holy praises. Nevertheless, being unable to urge as much as it would like, it cries out: O, let all creatures come to offer the flowers of their praise and the apples of their thanksgiving, of their homage and their adorations. Thus everywhere, one feels the spreading fragrance to the glory of him whose infinite sweetness surpasses all honour. We can never worthily glorify it.
It is this passionate divine love[1] which is the cause of so much preaching. It makes the Xaviers, the Berzees, the Anthonies to go through so many perils. It is the same passionate love that makes the multitude of Jesuits, Capuchins, religious and other ecclesiastics of all kinds in India, Japan, Maranon to make known, recognize and adore the sacred name of Jesus in the midst of these great nations. It is this holy passionate love which makes so many write spiritual books, found so many churches, altars and pious houses. Finally, it makes so many servants of God watch, work and die in the flames of zeal which consume and swallow them.[2]
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[1] Literally, divine passion
[2] The commentators, above all those who were the witnesses of his life, were pleased to see in these lines an intmate revelation of St. Francis de Sales on his own ideal of an apostle. See Pleiade, p 1733, footnote 1 under p. 594.