TWO OTHER DEGREES OF GREATER PERFECTION BY WHICH WE CAN LOVE GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS
There are other persons who neither love unnecessary things nor love excessively. They love only what God wants them to love and in the way he wants it. Happy people! They love God, and their friends in God, and their enemies for God. They love many things along with God, but not a single thing except in God and for God. It is God whom they love not only above all things but in all things, and all things in God. They resemble the phoenix which when perfectly renewed in youth and strength, is never seen except in the air or upon mountain tops high in the air. Thus these persons love nothing but in God, though indeed they love many things along with God and God along with many things.
St. Luke relates (9:59-60) that our Lord invited a young man to follow him. The young man loved him very dearly indeed but had also a great love for his father and hence wanted to return to him. Our Lord cuts off this excessive love and arouses him to a more pure love so that he may not only love our Lord more than his father but not love his father but in our Lord: Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, who have found life, go and proclaim the kingdom of God (Lk 9:60). As you see, Theotimus, these persons, having so great a union with the Spouse, merit to share his rank and to be queens as he is King. This because they are totally dedicated to him, without any division or separation, not loving anything apart from him and without him, but only in him and for him.
But finally, above all these persons there is one most uniquely unique. She is the queen of queens. She is the most loving, the most lovely and the most beloved of all the friends of the Divine Spouse. She not only loves God above all things and in all things, but loves only God in all things. Thus she does not love many things but only one thing which is God. Since it is God alone whom she loves in all that she loves, she loves him equally everywhere, as his good pleasure requires, outside all things and without all things.
If Assuerus loved Esther for herself alone, why did he love her more when perfumed and adorned than in her ordinary attire? If I love my Saviour for himself alone, shall not love Mount Calvary as much as Mount Thabor, since he is truly on the one as on the other? And why shall I not say as wholeheartedly on one as on the other: It is good to be here (Mt 17:4). I love the Saviour in Egypt without loving Egypt. Why shall I not love him at the feast of Simon the leper without loving the feast? And if I love him amid the blasphemies showered in him without loving the blasphemies, why shall I not love him perfumed with Magdalen’s precious ointment (Mt 26:7) without loving either the ointment or its fragrance? It is the true sign that we love only God in all things when we love him equally in all things. As he is always equal in himself, the inequality in our love for him cannot have its origin but from the consideration of something that is not himself. The sacred lover does not have a greater love for her king with the whole universe than if he were alone without the universe. This is because all that is apart from God and is not God is nothing to her. She is an all-pure person who loves not even Paradise but because the Spouse is loved there. Moreover, the Spouse is so supremely loved in his Paradise that even if he had no Paradise to give, he would be neither less lovable nor less loved by this generous lover. She is not able to love the Paradise of her Spouse but only her Spouse of Paradise. She puts no less a price on Calvary while her Spouse is there crucified than upon heaven where he is glorified. Whoever weighs one of the three little pellets from the heart of St. Clare of Montefalco finds it as heavy as all the three together. So also does perfect love find God as lovable all alone as taken together with all creatures, since it loves all creatures only in God and for God.
Persons of such perfection are few. Each one of them is called the only one ofher mother (Song 6:9), who is Divine Providence. She is called the one dove for whom the love of her beloved is everything. She is named perfect because by love she is made one same thing with the supreme perfection. Hence she can say with most humble truth: I am only for my Beloved and all his turning is towards me (Song 7:10). Now there is no one except the most holy Virgin our Lady who has arrived perfectly to this degree of excellence in the love of her dearly Beloved. She is a dove so uniquely unique in love that all the others compared to her deserve rather the name of crows than doves.
But aside from this peerless Queen in her matchless eminence, we have certainly seen persons who have found themselves in such a state of pure love that in comparison with others they could take the rank of queens, of unique doves, and of perfect friends of the Spouse. Theotimus, I ask you, what must he have been who with all his heart sang to God: Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you (Ps 73:25). And what of him who cried out: I count all things as mud and mire that I may gain Christ (Phil 3:8). Did he not testify that he did not love anything apart from his Master? And that he loved his Master apart from all things? And what must have been the feelings of that great lover [St. Francis of Assisi], who sighed all night: “My God is everything to me"? Such were St. Augustine, St. Bernard and the two Saints Catherine, of Siena and of Genoa, and many others, in imitation of whom everyone can aspire to this divine degree of love. These are rare and singular persons who resemble no longer the birds of this world, not even the phoenix itself which is so uniquely rare. Rather they are represented only by that bird which for its excellent beauty and nobility is said to be not of this world but of Paradise from which it takes its name. This beautiful bird, despising the earth, never touches it but lives always in the air. Thus, even when it wants to rest, it hangs from the trees suspended in the air by tiny threads for it can neither fly nor rest save in the air. So also these great persons do not, properly speaking, love creatures in themselves but in their Creator, and their Creator in them. But if by the law of charity they attach themselves to any creature it is only to rest in God, the unique and final aim of their love. Finding God in creatures and creatures in God, they love God and not the creatures. They are like pearl fishers who find pearls in oysters but consider they are fishing only for pearls.
However, I think that there never has been a mortal creature who has loved the heavenly Spouse with this unique love, so perfectly pure, except the Virgin who was his Spouse and Mother both together. On the contrary, as regards the practice of these four different degrees of love, one can hardly live without passing from one to another. The persons who are like young girls, still troubled by many vain and dangerous affections, do not fail at times to feel a purer and higher love. But as these are only passing flashes it cannot be said that these persons are outside the state of young girls, novices and apprentices. It also happens sometimes that persons who are in the rank of unique and perfect lovers forget themselves and fail very badly. They even go so far as to commit great imperfections and troublesome venial sins. This is seen in the many rather bitter disagreements which have occurred between great servants of God, yes, even among some of the divine Apostles. It cannot be denied that they fell into some imperfections. By these charity was certainly not violated though its fervour was diminished.
Nevertheless, as these great persons ordinarily loved God with a perfectly pure love, we are not to stop affirming that they were in the state of perfect love. We see that good trees never produce any harmful fruit. Yet sometimes they bear fruit that is unripe or worm-eaten and defective, or grow mistletoe and moss. In the same way, great Saints never produce any mortal sin but produce actions that are useless, immature, harsh, rough and lacking in discretion. We proclaim that these trees are fruitful, otherwise they would not be good trees. But still we must not deny that some of their fruits are fruitless. Who will deny that the catkins and the mistletoe of trees are fruitless fruits? And who will deny that tiny fits of anger, slight excesses of joy, laughter, vanity and such other passions, are unprofitable and unlawful movements? Yet the just man produces them seven times a day (Prov 24:16), that is, very frequently.