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Behold at length, Theotimus, how God, by a progress
full of ineffable sweetness, conducts the soul which
he makes leave the Egypt of sin, from love to love,
as from mansion to mansion, till he has made her
enter into the land of promise, I mean into most holy
charity, which to say it in one word, is a
friendship, and a disinterested love, for by charity
we love God for his own sake, by reason of his most
sovereignty amiable goodness.
But this friendship is a true friendship, being
reciprocal, for God has loved eternally all who have
loved him, do, or shall love him temporally. It is
shown and acknowledged mutually, since God cannot be
ignorant of the love we bear him, he himself
bestowing it upon us, nor can we be ignorant of his
love to us, seeing that he has so published it
abroad, and that we acknowledge all the good we have,
to be true effects of his benevolence.
And in fine we have continual communications with
him, who never ceases to speak unto our hearts by
inspirations, allurements, and sacred motions; he
ceases not to do us good, or to give all sorts of
testimonies of his most holy affection, having openly
revealed unto us all his secrets, as to his
confidential friends.
And to crown his holy loving intercourse with us,
he has made himself our proper food in the most holy
Sacrament of the Eucharist; and as for us, we have
freedom to treat with him at all times when we please
in holy prayer, having our whole life, movement and
being not only with him, but in him and by him.
Now this friendship is not a simple friendship,
but a friendship of dilection, by which we make
election of God, to love him with a special love. He
is chosen, says the sacred spouse, out of
thousands(1) - she says out of thousands, but she
means out of all, whence this love is not a love of
simple excellence, but an incomparable love; for
charity loves God by a certain esteem and preference
of his goodness so high and elevated above all other
esteems, that other loves either are not true loves
in comparison of this, or if they be true loves, this
love is infinitely more than love; and therefore,
Theotimus, it is not a love which the force of nature
either angelic or human can produce, but the Holy
Ghost gives it and pours it abroad in our hearts.(2)
And as our souls which give life to our bodies,
have not their origin from the body but are put in
them by the natural providence of God, so charity
which gives life to our hearts has not her origin
from our hearts, but is poured into them as a
heavenly liquor by the supernatural providence of his
divine Majesty.
For this reason, and because it has reference to
God and tends unto him not according to the natural
knowledge we have of his goodness, but according to
the supernatural knowledge of faith, we name it
supernatural friendship. Whence it, together with
faith and hope, makes its abode in the point and
summit of the spirit, and, as a queen of majesty, is
seated in the will as on her throne, whence she
conveys into the soul her delights and sweetnesses,
making her thereby all fair, agreeable and amiable to
the divine goodness.
So, that if the soul be a kingdom of which the
Holy Ghost is king, charity is the queen set at his
right hand in gilded clothing surrounded with
variety;(3) if the soul be a queen, spouse to the
great king of heaven, charity is her crown, which
royally adorns her head; and if the soul with the
body be a little world, charity is the sun which
beautifies all, heats all, and vivifies all.
Charity, then, is a love of friendship, a
friendship of dilection, a dilection of preference,
but a preference incomparable, sovereign, and
supernatural, which is as a sun in the whole soul to
enlighten it with its rays, in all the spiritual
faculties to perfect them, in all the powers to
moderate them, but in the will as on its throne,
there to reside and to make it cherish and love its
God above all things. O how happy is the soul wherein
this holy love is poured abroad, since all good
things come together with her!(4)
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