THE SWEETNESS OF THE COMMANDMENT WHICH GOD HAS GIVEN US OF LOVING HIM ABOVE ALL THINGS
The human being is the perfection of the universe. The spirit is the perfection of the human being. Love is the perfection of the spirit and charity is the perfection of love. That is why the love of God is the end, the perfection and the excellence of the universe. Theotimus, in this consists the greatness and primacy of the commandment of divine love, which the Saviour calls the first and greatest commandment (Mt 22:38). This commandment is like a sun, giving splendour and dignity to all the sacred laws, to all the divine ordinances and to all the Holy Scriptures. Everything is done for this heavenly love and everything has reference to it. This commandment is the sacred tree whose flowers are all the counsels, exhortations, inspirations and the other commandments, and whose fruit is eternal life. All that does not move towards eternal love, moves towards eternal death. Great commandment of which the perfect practice lasts through eternal life, rather, it is no other thing than eternal life.
But see, Theotimus, how lovable is this law of love. Ah, Lord God, was it not enough that it pleased you to allow us this divine love, as Laban allowed that of Rachel to Jacob, without it pleasing you further to invite us to it by exhortations, or urge us to it by your commandments? But no, O Divine Goodness, in order that neither your greatness nor our lowliness nor any pretext whatever should prevent us from loving you, you command us to do it. The poor Apelles was not able to keep from loving the beautiful Campaspe. Yet he did not dare to love her because she belonged to the great Alexander. But when he got permission to love her how greatly obliged did he consider himself to him who gave him leave. He did not know whether he should love more the beautiful Campaspe whom so great an emperor had given to him or the great emperor who had given to him such a beautiful Campaspe. O God of truth, if we were able to understand, my dear Theotimus, how great would be our obligation to this Supreme Good, who not only allows us but commands us to love him. Ah, my God, I do not know whether I should love more your infinite beauty which so divine a goodness orders me to love or your divine goodness which commands me to love such infinite beauty. O beauty, how lovable you are, being bestowed on me by a goodness so immense. O goodness, how lovable you are for giving me a beauty so eminent.
On the day of judgment, God will impress in some wonderful way on the spirits of the damned an awareness of the loss they will endure. The divine majesty will make them see clearly the supreme beauty of his face and the treasures of his goodness. At the sight of this infinite abyss of delights, the will by an extreme effort would want to cast itself upon him [God] to be united to him and enjoy his love. But all in vain. It will be like a woman in the pangs of childbirth, who after having suffered violent pains, cruel convulsions and intolerable distress, dies in the end without giving birth to her child. As soon as the clear and beautiful knowledge of the divine beauty shall have entered the minds of these miserable people, the divine justice will take away the strength of the will to such an extent that it will not at all be able to love this object which the understanding proposes to it and represents as being so lovable. This sight which should produce in the will so great a love, shall in its place give birth to an infinite sadness. This sadness will become eternal by the remembrance, that will remain for ever in these lost souls, of the supreme beauty they have seen. It will be a memory barren of all good but full of troubles , suffering, torments and undying despair. All the more so, because at the same time there shall be found in the will an impossibility of loving, or rather a frightful and everlasting aversion and repugnance to loving this most desirable excellence.
Thus the miserable damned shall live forever in despairing rage. While knowing a perfection so supremely lovable they will be forever unable to have the enjoyment or the love of it. And this because when they could love it they did not want to. They shall burn with a thirst so much the more violent as the remembrance of this fountain of living water (Jer 2:13; Jn.4:14) shall inflame their ardour. They shall die immortally, like dogs (Ps 59:6),1 of a hunger that is all the more acute as their memory sharpens its insatiable cruelty by the remembrance of the feast of which they have been deprived. The wicked shall see, and shall be angry, gnashing their teeth and pining away. The desire of the wicked shall perish (Ps 112:10). Of course, I would not affirm for certain that the view of God’s beauty which the damned shall have, like a passing vision and like a flash of lighting, will be as bright as the vision of the Saints. But still it will be clear enough for them to see the Son ofMan in his majesty (Mt 24:30). They shall look on him whom they pierced (Jn 19:37), and by the view of this glory they will learn the greatness of their loss. Ah! if God had forbidden humans to love him, what regrets there would be in generous hearts! What would they not do to obtain permission? David took the risk of a very hard combat to win the king’s daughter (1 Sam 18:25). What did not Jacob do to be able to wed Rachel (Gen 29:18), and the prince of Sichem to have Dina in marriage? (Gen 34). The damned would consider themselves blessed if they could think of being able to love God someday; and the Saints would consider themselves damned if they believed that even once they could be deprived of this sacred love.
O God of truth, how desirable is the sweetness of this commandment, Theotimus. If the divine will gave this commandment to love to the damned, they would in a moment be freed from their greatest misery. The Saints are only Saints by the practice of this commandment. O heavenly love, how lovable you are to our spirit. Blessed be forever the goodness [of God] who commands us with such great care to love him, even though his love is so desirable and so necessary to our happiness that without it we can only be miserable.