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O Theotimus! how amiable is this Divine will! O how
amiable and desirable it is! O law all of love and
all for love!
The Hebrews by the word, peace, understand the
collection and perfection of all good things, that
is, happiness: and the Psalmist cries out: Much peace
have they that love thy law; and to them there is no
stumbling-block:(1) as though he would say: O Lord!
what delights are in the love of thy sacred
commandments! The heart that is possessed with the
love of thy law is possessed of all delicious
sweetness. Truly that great king whose heart was made
according to the heart of God, did so relish the
perfect excellence of the divine commandments, that
he seems to be a lover captivated with the beauty of
this law as with the chaste spouse and queen of his
heart; as appears by his continual praises thereof.
When the heavenly spouse would express the
infinite sweetness of her divine lover's perfumes:
Thy name, says she unto him, is as oil poured out:(2)
as though she said: thou art so excellently perfumed,
that thou seemest to be all perfume, and thou art
more fitly termed ointment and perfume, than anointed
and perfumed. So the soul that loves God is so
transformed into the divine will, that it merits
rather to be called, God's will, than to be called,
obedient and subject to his will.
Whence God says by Isaias, that he will call the
Christian church by a new name, which the mouth of
the Lord will pronounce, imprint, and engrave, in the
hearts of his faithful; and then, explaining this
name, he says it shall be: My will in her:(3) as
though he had said, that among such as are not
Christians every one has his own will in the midst of
his heart, but among the true children of our Saviour,
every one shall forsake his own will, and shall have
only one master-will, dominant and universal, which
shall animate, govern and direct all souls, all
hearts and all wills: and the name of honour amongst
Christians shall be no other than God's will in them,
a will which shall rule over all wills, and transform
them all into itself; so that the will of Christians
and the will of Our Lord may be but one single will.
This was perfectly verified in the primitive
Church, when, as says the glorious S. Luke: In the
multitude of the faithful there was but one heart and
one soul:(4) for he means not there to speak of the
heart that keeps alive our bodies, nor of the soul
which animates hearts with a human life, but he
speaks of the heart which gives our souls heavenly
life, and of the soul that animates our hearts with
the supernatural life; the one, the singularly one
heart and soul of true Christians, which is no other
thing than the will of God.
Life, says the Psalmist, is in the will of God,(5)
not only because our temporal life depends on the
divine pleasure, but also because our spiritual life
consists in the execution of it, by which God lives
and reigns in us, making us live and subsist in him.
On the contrary, the wicked from of old (that is,
always) have broken the yoke of the law of God, and
have said: I will not serve.(6) Wherefore God says
that he named them transgressors and rebels from the
womb;(7) and speaking to the king of Tyre, he
reproaches him for having set his heart as the heart
of God:(8) for the spirit of revolt will have its
heart to be its own master, and its own will to be
sovereign like the will of God; it would not have the
divine will to reign over it, but would be absolute
and without any dependence. O eternal Lord! suffer
not this, - but effect that not my will but thine be
done. Yes, we are in this world not to do our own
will, but the will of thy goodness which has placed
us here.
It was written of thee, O Saviour of my soul, that
thou didst the will of thy Eternal Father,(9) and by
the first act of the will of thy human soul, at the
instant of thy conception, thou didst lovingly
embrace this law of the divine will, and didst place
it in the midst of thy heart there to reign and have
dominion for ever. Ah! who will give my soul the
grace of having no will save the will of her God!
Now when our love is exceeding great towards God's
will, we are not content to do only the Divine will
which is signified unto us by the commandments, but
we also put ourselves under the obedience of the
counsels, which are only given us for a more perfect
observing of the commandments, to which also they
have reference, as S. Thomas says excellently well. O
how well does he observe the prohibition of unlawful
pleasures who has even renounced the most just and
legitimate delights! How far is he from coveting
another man's goods who rejects even such as he might
holily have kept! How far is he from preferring his
own will before God's, who, to do God's will, submits
himself to that of a man!
David upon a day was in his camp, and the
Philistine garrison in Bethlehem.(10) And David
longed, and said: Oh! that some man would give me a
drink of the water out of the cistern that is in
Bethlehem, by the gate! And behold, he had no sooner
said the word than three valiant men set out, hand
and head lowered, break through the hostile camp, go
to the cistern of Bethlehem, draw water, and bring it
to David, who, seeing the hazard which these three
knightly men had run to gratify his longing, would
not drink the water obtained at the peril of their
blood and life, but poured it out in sacrifice to the
eternal God.
Ah! mark, I beseech you, Theotimus, how great the
ardour of these cavaliers in the service and
satisfaction of their master! They fly, they break
through the ranks of their enemies, they incur a
thousand dangers of destruction, to gratify only one
simple desire, which their king expresses before
them.
Our Saviour when he was in this world declared his
will in some cases by way of commandment, and in many
others he only signified it by way of desire: for he
did highly commend chastity, poverty, obedience and
perfect resignation, the abnegation of one's own
will, widowhood, fasting, continual prayer; and what
he said of chastity, that he who could win the prize
should win it, he said sufficiently of all the other
counsels. At this desire, the most valiant Christians
have entered on the race, and overcoming all
repugnances, concupiscences and difficulties, they
have arrived at holy perfection, keeping themselves
to the strict observance of their King's desires, and
by this means bearing away the crown of glory.
Verily, as witnesses the divine Psalmist, God hears
not only the prayers of his faithful, but even their
very desire and the mere preparation of their hearts
for prayer;(11) so inclined and forward is he to do
the will of those who love him. And why shall not we
then in return be so zealous in following God's holy
will, as to do not only what he orders, but also what
we know he likes and wishes.
Noble souls need no other spur to the undertaking
of a design than to know that their beloved desires
it: My soul, said one of them, melted when he
spoke.(12)
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