GOD IS JEALOUS IN HIS LOVE OF US
God says thus: I am the Lord your God, strong, jealous. The Lord has for his name jealous (Ex 20:5). So, God is Jealous, Theotimus. But in what way is he jealous? It seems to be a jealousy of self-interest as that of husbands for their wives. For he wishes that we belong to him so completely that we do not belong to anyone else except himself. No one, says he, can serve two master's (Mt 6:24). He demands our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, our whole strength (Deut 6:5; Mt 22:37). For this reason God is called our Spouse and our souls his spouses. All alienation from him is termed fornication, adultery. And he is right, this great God, entirely, uniquely good in desiring our whole heart. It cannot offer enough love to love worthily the divine goodness. Then is it not fitting that we give him all the love we can as we are not able to give him all the love he deserves? The supreme good, supremely worthy of love, should it not be supremely loved? To love supremely is to love totally.
However, this jealousy of God is not a jealousy of self- ish-love but of supreme friendship. For it is not to his advantage that we love him. It is for our well-being. Our love is useless for him. But it is of great benefit to us. It is pleasing to him because we gain from it. As he is supreme good, he delights in sharing with us through his love without any advantage to him. Hence he cried out complaining about sinners in a jealous manner: They have forsaken me, the fountain ofliving water, and dug out cisterns forthemselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water (Jer 2:13).
Reflect a little, Theotimus, I beg you, how this divine Lover delicately expresses the nobility and magnanimity of his jealousy: They have forsaken me, the fountain ofliving water. It is as if he says: I do not complain about their forsaking me because their abandoning me cannot cause me any harm. For what harm can happen to a living fountain if no one goes there to draw water? Does it, for that reason, cease to gush forth and flow over the earth? I am sorry for their misfortune. They have left me and have chosen for themselves wells without water. Suppose something impossible. They could find some other source of living water. If so, would easily tolerate their departure from me since I have no desire for their love than for their own happiness. But to leave me for perishing, to abandon me to fall headlong, these make me surprised and angry at their foolishness. Since he loves us, he desires that we love him. For we cannot stop loving him without beginning to be lost. We lose whatever measure of love we take away from him.
Set me, says the divine Shepherd to the Sulamite, set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm (Song 8:6). The Sulamite, surely, had her heart entirely filled with heavenly love for her beloved Lover. Although he had her whole love, he was not satisfied with it. By a holy mistrust of jealousy, he wants to be set on the heart which he possesses and to seal it with himself. Thus the love which is for him in her heart does not go out and nothing enters there which may blend with it. For he is not satisfied with the love of which the soul of the Sulamite is full unless this love is steady, totally pure and solely for him. Still he wants not only to enjoy the affections of our heart but to be like a seal on our right arm, also to enjoy the effects and activities of our hands. Thus it will stretch itself and be used for activities in his service. The reason for this request of the divine Lover is this: The death is so strong that it separates the soul from all things and even from its own body. So too holy love as it reaches the stage of zeal, it separates, alienates the soul from all other loves.
Sacred love purifies the soul from all mingling as love is not only as strong as death (Song 8:6) but also harsh, inflexible, hard, and pitiless to punish the wrong done to it in accepting its rivals, like hell, violent to punish the damned. Hell is full of terror, and wickedness. Not even a mixture of love is found there. Similarly jealous love does not accept the mingling of any affection whatever desiring that everything be for the Beloved. No creature is more gentle than the dove. No one is so pitiless towards its mate as when it has some jealousy. If ever you had paid attention, Theotimus, you would have seen this gentle animal returning from its flight and seeing its mate with its companions cannot overcome a sensation of distrust. It reacts harshly and strangely. So first of all, it circles around its mate grumbling, fretting, beating her with its wings, stamping on her though it knows that she is faithful and see her all pure and innocent.
One day, St. Catherine of Siena was in rapture which did not take away the use of her senses. While God was showing her marvellous things her brother passed by close to her making some noise. It distracted her. She turned to look at him for just a little moment. This tiny distraction, so unforeseen and sudden, was neither a sin nor an unfaithfulness, but only the shade of a sin and an image of unfaithfulness, Yet the most holy Mother of the heavenly Bridegroom reproached her so much and the glorious St. Paul made her feel so ashamed that she almost melt into tears. David was restored to grace by perfect love. How he was punished for a single venial sin which he committed in taking a census of his people.
Theotimus, the seraphic St. Catherine of Genova has described clearly and excellently this jealousy. We must read her instructions explaining the qualities of pure love. Among these qualities she urges and insists on jealousy. Perfect love, that is to say, love on reaching the stage of zeal cannot permit any interference or intervention or the mingling of any other thing, not even the gifts of God. Zeal reaches such an extreme that it does not allow that we love heaven if not to love there more perfectly the goodness of God who gives it. Thus the lamps of this pure love have neither oil, nor wicks nor smoke. They are all fire and flame so that nothing in the world can put it out (Song 8:6-7).
Those who have these burning lamps in their hands (Lk 12:35) have the most holy fear of chaste spouses, not that of adulterous women. Both fear but in different ways, says St. Augustine. The chaste spouse fears the absence of her spouse and the adulteress fears his presence. “The chaste fears that he may go away and the adulteress that he may stay." The former is so earnest in her love that she is full ofjealousy. The latter is not jealous at all because she does not love. She is afraid of being punished while the chaste is afraid of not being loved enough.
Indeed, the chaste spouse does not fear, to speak properly, of not being loved as do other jealous persons who love themselves and desires to be loved. But she is afraid of not loving God sufficiently. She sees him so worthy of love that no one can love him according to the greatness of the love he deserves. This I have said earlier. That is why she does not love him with a selfish love but with a pure jealousy which does not spring from any selfish love. It arises from a noble simple friendship. This jealousy soon spreads itself to the neighbour like the love from which it proceeds. Since we love our neighbour as ourselves for the sake of God, we are also jealous of him for the sake of God. Just as we ourselves are jealous of ourselves so too we like to die to prevent our neighbour from being lost.
Since zeal is a blazing intensity or an intense blaze of love, it is necessary to practise it wisely and prudently. Otherwise under the pretext of zeal, we will break the limits of moderation or discretion. It is easy to pass from zeal to anger, from a righteous love to unrighteous passion. Hence it is not here to note the conditions of zeal, my Theotimus. I advise you to seek the counsels for the practice of zeal from your spiritual guide, God gave you in the devout life.