CALVARY, THE MOUNT OF DIVINE LOVE[1]
Finally, to conclude this Treatise the Death and Passion of Our Lord are the sweetest and strongest motive that can inflame our hearts in this life. Truly, the mystical bees make their most delicious honey in the wounds of this Lion ofthe tribe of Juda (Rev 5:5). He was killed, pierced and torn on Calvary. The children of the cross glory in their admirable riddle (paradox) which the world does not understand. From death which swallows up everything comes out the food of our consolation. From death stronger than everything comes the sweetness of the honey of our love (Judg 14: 8, 14).[2] O Jesus, my Saviour, how lovable is your death because it is the supreme expression of your love!
In the glory of heaven above, the first is the motive of divine Goodness in itself, known and contemplated. Next will be the Saviour’s death the most powerful motive to enrapture the hearts of the Blessed in the love of God. We have a sign of it in the transfiguration, a foretaste of glory. Moses and Elijah were speaking with our Lord about the excess which he should accomplish in Jerusalem (Lk 9:31). What is the excess unless it is the excess of love by which life was enraptured (carried away) out of the Lover to be given to his beloveds? Hence, I imagine that in the eternal canticle, we will repeat at every moment, this joyful acclamation:
Vive Jesus - Live Jesus whose death
Doth show how strong is love.
Theotimus, mount Calvary is the mount of lovers. All love which does not take its origin (source) from the Passion of the Saviour is foolish and dangerous. Unhappy is the death without the love of the Saviour. Unhappy is the love without the death of the Saviour. Love and death are eternally blended together in the Passion of the Saviour. We cannot have one in our heart without the other. On Calvary we cannot have life without love, or love without the death of the Redeemer. Beyond, this, all is either eternal death or eternal love. All Christian wisdom consists in making the right choice. To help you do this I have written this Treatise, my Theotimus:
Choose you must O human
While this life lasts
Eternal love or death - the choice;
And God has left no middle way.
O, eternal love, my soul needs you and chooses you eternally. Yes, “Come, Holy Spirit and inflame our hearts with your love."[3] Either to love or to die! To die and to love! To die to all other love to live for the love of Jesus so that we may not die eternally. Thus living in your eternal love, Saviour of our souls, we may sing eternally: Live Jesus! love Jesus! Live Jesus that I may love. I love Jesus living and reigning for ever and ever. Amen.
Thus I close this whole Treatise by the following words by which St Augustine concluded an excellent sermon on charity which he preached before an eminent congregation: These things, Theotimus, were written to your charity by the grace and assistance of charity. May they dwell [take deep root] in your heart to such an extent that this charity may find in you the fruits of holy works and not the leaves of praise. Amen. Blessed be God!
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[1] The literal translation of the title of the chapter is Mount Calvary The True Academy Of Love or The True School Of Love. Academy and school refer to the intellectual and training dimension of love. In the chapter, the death of the Saviour is presented as the second most powerful motive of love, next to divine goodness. Calvary is called the Mount of lovers. So we preferred to give the title as above.
[2] It is an allusion to the bees and honey which Samson found in the carcass of the lion which he had killed.
[3] Alleluia in the Mass of Pentacost.
END OF BOOK TWELVE
AND OF THE WHOLE TREATISE