TO HAVE THE DESIRE OF SACRED LOVE WE SHOULD RENOUNCE ALL OTHER DESIRES
What, do you think, Theotimus, is the reason that the hounds lose the track and scent of the animal more often in spring time than at any other time? The hunters and philosophers say that it is because the plants and flowers are then in their full bloom. So the variety of scents they produce suffocate the nose of the dogs. It is to such an extent that they do not know to choose or follow the odour of the prey among the different smells which the earth sends forth. Surely, those persons who continually abound in desires, projects and plans never desire holy, heavenly love as they should. They are not able to feel the loving trace and course of the Beloved. He is compared to a gazelle or a young stag (Song 2:9)
The lilies have no season. It flowers sooner or later as one plants it more or less deep in the earth. If we push the lily three fingers deep in the earth, soon it will flower. But if we bury it six or nine fingers deep, it will always blossom proportionately later. If the heart which aims at divine love is deeply immersed in worldly and temporal affairs, it will blossom late and with difficulty. But he is in the world only in so far as circumstances require. If so, you will see him soon blossom in love and spread a pleasant fragrance (Song 2:13).
To realize this, the saints withdrew themselves into deserts. It was to detach themselves from worldly cares and devote themselves more earnestly to divine love. For this, the holy spouse shut one of her eyes so that she might concentrate her sight more strongly in the other eye alone. By this she aims at the very centre of the heart of her Beloved which she desires to wound with love (Song 4:9). For the same purpose, she keeps her hair plaited and thick- set in her tress so that she appears to have only one hair. She makes use of it as a chain to bind and carry off the heart of her spouse which she makes a slave of her love. Humans who desire in earnest to love God close their understanding to the consideration of worldly things. This is to devote themselves more fervently to meditations on divine realities. They gather together all their aims under a single intention they have to love God uniquely. Whoever desires something which he does not desire for God desires God so much the less.
A religious once asked the saintly Giles: “What is the best way of pleasing God?"[1] He replied singing, “One to one, one to one." It means “one only soul to the one only God." Too many desires and loves in a heart are like many children on the breast [of a mother]. All of them cannot suck it together. So they press sometimes one, sometimes another vying with each other. Thus they make the breast empty and dried up. He who aspires to divine love must carefully keep his spare time, his spirit, his feelings of love only for divine love.
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[1] TLG Bk V, Ch.7.