THE CONFORMITY OF SUBMISSION WHICH FLOWS FROM BENEVOLENT LOVE
Gratifying love draws into us the characteristics of the divine perfections in so far as we are able to receive them. The mirror reflects the likeness of the sun. It is not according to the excellence and dimensions of this great and wonderful luminary but in proportion to the capability and size of the glass. So, too, we are thus formed to the likeness of God.
Besides this, benevolent love[1] gives us this holy conformity[2] in another way. Gratifying love[3] draws God into our hearts. Benevolent love pours[4] our heart into God. As a consequence we dedicate and consecrate all our actions and emotions to him very lovingly. For benevolent love desires to give to God all honour, all glory and all gratitude which is possible. It is like something good outside of God which is due to his goodness.
Now this desire is practised in the following way. We have experienced supreme delight in seeing that God is supremely good. Hence our benevolent love desires that all forms of love which it is possible for us to imagine be made use of to love this goodness. We are delighted with the supreme excellence of God’s perfection. So we long for him to be supremely praised, honoured and adored. We are delighted to reflect how God is not only the first principle but also the last end, Creator, Preserver and Lord of all things. For this reason we wish that everything be subject to him by supreme obedience. We realize that the will of God is supremely perfect, straight forward, just and reasonable. On account of this realization, we desire that it may be the rule and supreme law of all things. We earnestly want that all other wills follow, serve and obey God's will.
Note, Theotimus, that I am not speaking here about the obedience we owe to God because he is our Lord and Master, our Father and Benefactor. For such obedience belongs to the virtue of justice and not love. No. It is not about it that am discussing now. Imagine that there was neither hell to punish the rebellious nor heaven to reward the good. Imagine that we have neither obligation nor duty whatever to God. (This is said by way of imagining the impossible. It is almost impossible to imagine). Even if it is so, benevolent love would lead us to give obedience and submission to God by choice and inclination. Indeed, it is the result of a gentle, loving violence on realizing the supreme goodness, justice and righteousness of God's will. Do we not see, Theotimus, that a girl, by a choice which proceeds from benevolent love, subjects herself to her husband towards whom earlier she had no duty whatever? Is it not the same with a nobleman who submits himself to the service of a foreign prince? or if he submits his will to a superior of some religious order in which he enters?
It is thus that the likeness of our heart with that of God is brought about. Through benevolent love we pour out our affections into the hands of the divine will. The purpose of it is that the divine will may bend and ply them according to its liking, shape and form them according to its good pleasure. In this consists the most profound obedience of love. Neither threats nor rewards, neither any law nor any commandments are necessary to prompt such obedience. For it comes before all these, submitting itself to God only because of the most perfect goodness that is in him.[5] For this reason God deserves that all wills obey him, subject themselves and submit to him, complying with and uniting themselves for ever in everything and everywhere to his divine intentions.
___________________________________________
[1] L'amour de bienveillance. Kerns translates it as benevolent love, Mackey and Ryan love of benevolence. We have preferred “benevolent love” as in our opinion it expresses clearly the benevolent quality of love. Depending on the context sometimes we translate la bienveillance as benevolent love.
[2] La conformitemeans likeness, agreement, conformity, compliance. It means that by following God’s will our will grows into the likeness of God’s will, through benevolent love. We use conformity, compliance, likeness with the same meaning. It is parallel to gratifying love. By delighting in God we absorb his perfections.
[3] L'amour de complaisance: Kerns gratifying love; Mackey love of complacency; Ryan love of complacence. We have preferred to use “gratifying love” as complacency and complacence in English always have a negative connotation of undue self-complacency. Sometimes we translate la complacence as delight or gratifying love depending on the context.
[4] jette nos coeurs literally means to throw, fling, hurl, shoot forth our hearts-Note the force of the expression.
[5] The essence of the obedience of love consists in this: the experience of the immense, limitless goodness of God, and the selfless benevolent love, such goodness provokes or prompts.