SOME OTHER MEANS BY WHICH HOLY LOVE WOUNDS THE HEART
Nothing wounds a loving heart so much as to see another heart wounded by love for it. The Pelican makes its nest on the ground. So the serpents often come to sting its young ones. When it happens the Pelican, like an excellent doctor, with natural instinct, wounds all the parts of these poor chicks by the sharp point of its beak. It is to make the poison flow out with the blood which the snake bite had spread all over their bodies. To make the whole poison come out, it lets the whole blood flow out. As a consequence it allows this little brood of pelicans to die. On seeing them dead, it wounds itself and pours its blood on them. It revives them to a new and purer life. It’s love wounded them. And immediately, by the same love, it wounds itself. We never wound a heart with the wound of love, without being our selves wounded immediately by the same love.
When the soul sees its God wounded by love for it, it receives immediately a mutual wound. You have wounded my heart, said the heavenly Lover to his Sulamite (Song 4:9). The Sulamite exclaims: Tell my Beloved that I am wounded by love (Song 5:8). The bees never wound without being fatally wounded. We see that our Saviour was wounded by love for us to death and death on the cross (Ph 2:8). How can we remain without being wounded for love of him! But, I say wounded by a wound all the more painfully loving, as his wound has been lovingly painful. We can never love him so much as a response to his love and death demand.
There is still another wound of love. The human spirit feels that it loves God earnestly. Nevertheless, God treats it as if he did not know about its love for him. Or he shows as if he did not trust its love. Then, my dear Theotimus, the soul experiences extreme anguish. It is unbearable for it to see and feel even the appearance of being distrusted by God. Poor St. Peter had and felt that he was full of love for his Master. Our Lord, as if he did not know it, says to Peter: Do you love me more than these? Yes Lord, answers this apostle, You knowthat I love you. But Peter, Do you love me? retorts the Saviour. My dear Master, says the apostle, I love you certainly, you know it. And this gentle Master to test him, and as if not trusting to be loved by him asks: Peter, do you love me? Ah! Lord, you wound this heart which is very distressed. It cries out lovingly but painfully:
My Master, You know everything, you know quite certainly that I love you (Jn 21:15-17).
One day a possessed person was being exorcised. The exorcist insisted that the evil spirit tell its name “I am”, it answered, “this unhappy [creature] deprived of love”. Suddenly St. Catherine of Genova who was present there felt all her interior disturbed and upset. She had only heard pronounced the words, “Privation of love". The demons hate so strongly divine love that they shiver when they see a sign of it or hear the same. It happens when they see a cross or hear the name of Jesus said. Similarly, those who fervently love Our Lord, shudder with fear and horror when they see some sign or hear some word which implies the privation of this love.
St. Peter was quite sure that Our Lord knew everything. The Lord could not be ignorant of how much he was loving him. The repetition of the same question, do you love me? had the appearance of mistrust. So Peter was very much grieved at it (Jn 21:15-18). Alas, this poor soul feels that it is better to die rather than offend its God. But it does not feel even a bit of fervour. On the contrary, it is submerged in extreme coldness. It is so weak that it falls into visible imperfections at every step. This soul, I tell you Theotimus, is wounded all over. For its love is very painful as it feels that God does not seem to see how much it loves him. He abandons it like a creature that does not belong to him. It fancies that in the midst of its failures, distractions and coldness, our Lord addresses this reproach to it: “How can you say that you love me since your spirit is not with me?" It is an arrow that pierces through its heart. But it is an arrow of pain which proceeds from love. For, if it were not loving, it would not be distressed by the fear it has of not loving him.
Sometimes this wound is caused uniquely by the memory we have of not loving God in the past: “How late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient and new"! said this saint [St. Augustine] who had been a heretic for thirty years. The past life is a horror to the present life of the one who lived his previous life without loving the supreme goodness.
Love itself sometimes wounds. A multitude of people despise the love of God. This thought alone causes the wound. It is such that we faint of distress. It is like the one who said: My zeal consumes me because my foes forget your words (Ps 119:139). The great St. Francis [of Assisi], one day, thinking that no one heard it, wept, sobbed and lamented very loudly. A good person heard it. He ran to his help, thinking that someone was slitting his throat. He saw him all alone and asked: “Why do you cry like this, poor man"? Francis replied: “Alas! I weep because Our Lord suffered so much for love of us. No one thinks of it" After saying these words, he began to shed tears again. This good man too began to sigh and weep with him.
However it may be, this is something marvellous in the wounds caused by divine love. The pain arising from it is pleasant. All those who have felt it agree. They would not like to exchange this pain for all the sweetness of the universe. There is no pain at all in love. Or if there is, it is a dearly loved pain. One day a seraphim was holding a golden arrow. A little flame was burning at the [sharp] point of the arrow. He thrust it into the heart of [St.] Blessed Mother Teresa [of Avila]. As he was taking it back it seemed to this virgin that her interior was being torn out. The pain was so intense that she had no more strength except to raise feeble sighs and utter little groans. However, the pain was so lovable that she never wished to be freed from it. Such was the arrow of love that God sent into the heart of the great St. Catherine of Genova at the beginning of her conversion. From that time on she remained completely changed. She was as if dead to the world and to created things, only to be alive to the Creator. My Beloved is to me a bunch of bitter myrrh. This bitter bunch is mutually the Beloved. He lies lovingly between the breasts of the beloved (Song 1:13). It means the most loved of all beloveds.