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Now there are other souls who neither love
superfluities, nor yet with superfluity, but love
only that which God wills and as he wills: - blessed
souls, who love God, their friends in God, and their
enemies for God; they love many things together with
God, but none at all, save in God and for God: it is
God that they love, not only above all things, but
even in all things, and all things in God, resembling
the phoenix when perfectly renewed in youth and
strength, which is never seen but in the air, or upon
the tops of mountains that are in high air: for so
these souls love nothing but in God; though indeed
they love many things with God, and God with many
things.
S. Luke recounts that our Saviour invited a young
man to follow him, who indeed loved him dearly, but
who had also a great affection for his father, and
thereupon had a mind to return home to him. But our
Saviour cuts off this superfluity of love, and
excites him to a love more pure, that he may not only
love our Saviour more than his father, but not even
love his father at all, but in our Saviour. Let the
dead bury their dead: but as for thee (who hast met
with life), go thou, and preach the kingdom of
God.(1)
And these souls, as you see, Theotimus, having so
great a union with the spouse, merit to share his
rank, and to be queens, as he is king; since they are
entirely dedicated to him without any division or
separation, having no affections out of him, or
without him, but only in him and for him.
But, at last, above all these souls, there is yet one
most only one, who is the queen of queens, the most
loving, the most lovely, and the most beloved, of all
the friends of the divine beloved, who not only loves
God above all things and in all things, but also
loves only God in all things, so that she loves not
many things, but one only thing, which is God
himself. And whereas it is God alone whom she loves
in all that she loves, she loves him indifferently in
all things, according as his goodpleasure may
require, outside all things and without all things.
If it be only Esther that Assuerus loves, why
should he love her more when perfumed and adorned,
than in her ordinary attire? If it be my Saviour only
that I love, why shall I not as much love Mount
Calvary as Mount Thabor, since he is as truly on the
one, as on the other? And why shall I not as
affectionately in one as in the other say: It is good
for us to be here.(2) I love my Saviour in Egypt,
without loving Egypt; why shall I not love him at the
banquet of Simon the leper, without loving the
banquet? And if I love him amidst the blasphemies
which are poured upon him, not loving the
blasphemies, why shall I not love him perfumed with
Magdalen's ointment, without loving either the
ointment or its scent?
It is the true sign that we love only God in all
things, when we love him equally in all things,
because he being always equal to himself, the
inequality of our love towards him must needs proceed
from the consideration of something that is not
himself.
Now this sacred loving one loves no more her God
with all the world, than if he were alone without the
world: because all that is out of God, and is not
God, is nothing to her. She is an all-pure soul who
loves not even Paradise but because her beloved is
loved there: and he is so sovereignly beloved in his
Paradise that if yet he had no Paradise to bestow, he
would neither appear less amiable, nor be less
beloved of this generous loving heart, who cannot
love the Paradise of her spouse but only her spouse
of Paradise, and who puts no less price on Calvary
while her spouse is there crucified, than upon
Paradise where he is glorified. He that weighs one of
the little balls of the heart of S. Clare of
Montefalco, finds it as heavy as all the three
together. So does perfect love find God as amiable
all alone, as it finds all creatures together with
him, since it loves all creatures only in God and for
God.
Souls in this degree of perfection are so rare that
each one is called the only one of her mother, who is
divine Providence; she is called the one dove, for
whom the love of her mate is all; she is termed
perfect, because by love she is made the same thing
with the sovereign Perfection, whence she may say
with a most humble truth: I to my beloved and his
turning towards me.(3)
Now there is no one save the most blessed Virgin
our Lady, who has perfectly arrived at this height of
excellence in the love of her dearly beloved: for she
is a dove so singularly singular in love, that all
the rest being compared to her are rather to be
termed daws than doves. But leaving this peerless
queen in her matchless eminence, - there have yet
been other souls who have been in such estate of pure
love that in comparison with others they might take
the rank of queens, of only doves, of perfect friends
of the spouse.
For I pray you, Theotimus, what must he needs have
been, who with all his heart sang to God: What have I
in heaven, and besides thee what do I desire upon
earth?(4) And he that cried out: I count all things
but as dung that I may gain Christ;(5) - did he not
testify that he loved nothing out of his master, and
that he loved his master without any other things?
And what must have been the feelings of that great
lover, who sighed all the night: "My God is to me all
things." Such were S. Augustine, S. Bernard, the two
SS. Catharine, of Siena and of Genoa, and many
others, in imitation of whom every one may aspire to
this divine degree of love: rare and singular souls,
who resemble no longer the birds of this world, no
not the very phoenix itself, though so singularly
rare; but are only represented by that bird which,
for its excellent beauty and nobleness is said not to
be of this world, but of Paradise, of which it bears
the name.
For this fair bird disdaining the earth, never
touches it, but lives above in the air; yea even when
it desires to unweary itself, it will only cleave to
the trees by little threads, hanging by them
suspended in the air, out of which, or without which,
it can neither fly nor repose. Even so these great
souls do not, properly speaking, love creatures in
themselves, but in their Creator, and their Creator
in them. But if they cleave to any creature by the
law of charity, it is only to repose in God, the
single and final aim of their love. So that finding
God in creatures, and creatures in God, they love
God, not the creatures; as pearl-fishers, though they
find the pearls in oysters, consider that they are
simply fishing for pearls.
At the same time no mortal creature, as I think, ever
loved the heavenly lover solely with this perfectly
pure love, except that Virgin who was his spouse and
mother both together; on the contrary, as regards the
practice of these four differences of love, one can
hardly live without passing from one of them to
another.
The souls which like young maidens are still
entangled in some vain and dangerous affections are
not, at times, without feelings of a purer and
supreme love; but as these are but momentary and
passing flashes, we cannot say that they raise them
from the state of young novice, or apprentice,
maidens.
It happens also sometimes, to the souls who are in
the degree of singular and perfect lovers, that they
forget themselves and fail very sadly, even as far as
to the committing great imperfections and grievous
venial sins, as we see in various somewhat bitter
dissensions which have occurred between great
servants of God, yea even amongst some of the divine
Apostles, who, as we cannot deny, fell into some
imperfections; certainly charity was not violated by
them, but the fervour of it was.
Nevertheless, as these great souls ordinarily
loved God with the perfectly pure love, we are not to
say that they were not in the state of perfect love.
For as we see that good trees never produce any
hurtful fruit, yet sometimes bear green or defective
and worm-eaten fruit, or mistletoe and moss; so great
saints never produce any mortal sin, but still they
produce some useless, immature, harsh, rough and ill-flavoured
actions. In such cases we must allow 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. For who will deny that catkins and the
mistletoe of trees are fruitless fruits? And who also
will deny that slight angers and little excesses of
joy, of laughter, of vanity and of other similar
passions, are unprofitable and unlawful movements?
Yet the just man brings them forth seven tinges a
day, that is, very often.
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