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The triumphant love which the blessed in heaven
exercise, consists in the final, invariable and
eternal union of the soul with its God. But this
union - what is it?
By how much more agreeable and excellent are the
objects our senses meet with, so much more ardently
and greedily they give themselves to the fruition of
them. By how much more fair, delightful to the view,
and duly set in light they are, so much the more
eagerly and attentively does the eye regard them: and
by how much more sweet and pleasant voices or music
are, so much the more is the attention of the ear
drawn to them. So that every object exercises a
powerful but grateful violence upon the sense to
which it belongs, a violence more or less strong as
the excellence is greater or less; provided always
that it be proportionable to the capacity of the
sense which desires to enjoy it; for the eye which
finds so much pleasure in light cannot, however, bear
an extreme light, nor fix itself upon the sun, and be
music never so sweet, if loud and too near, it
importunes and offends our ears.
Truth is the object of our understanding, which
consequently has all its content in discovering and
knowing the truth of things; and according as truths
are more excellent, so the understanding applies
itself with more delight and attention to the
consideration of them.
How great was the pleasure, think you,
Theotimus, of those ancient philosophers who had such
an excellent knowledge of so many beautiful truths of
Nature? Verily they reputed all pleasures as nothing
in comparison with their well-beloved philosophy, for
which some of them quitted honours, others great
riches, others their country; and there was such a
one as deliberately plucked out his eyes, depriving
himself for ever of the enjoyment of the fair and
agreeable corporal light, that he might with more
liberty apply himself to consider the truth of things
by the light of the spirit.
This we read of Democritus: so sweet is the
knowledge of truth! Hence Aristotle has very often
said that human felicity and beatitude consists in
wisdom, which is the knowledge of the eminent truths.
But when our spirit, raised above natural light,
begins to see the sacred truths of faith, O God!
Theotimus, what joy! The soul melts with pleasure,
hearing the voice of her heavenly spouse, whom she
finds more sweet and delicious then the honey of all
human sciences.
God has imprinted upon all created things his traces,
trail, or footsteps, so that the knowledge we have of
his divine Majesty by creatures seems no other thing
than the sight of the feet of God, while in
comparison of this, faith is a view of the very face
of the divine Majesty.
This we do not yet see in the clear day of glory,
but as it were in the breaking of day; as it happened
to Jacob near to the ford of Jaboc; for though he saw
not the angel with whom he wrestled, save in the weak
light of daybreak, yet this was enough to make him
cry out, ravished with delight: I have seen God face
to face, and my soul has been saved.(1)
O! how delightful is the holy light of faith, by
which we know, with an unequalled certitude, not only
the history of the beginning of creatures, and their
true use, but even that of the eternal birth of the
great and sovereign divine Word, for whom and by whom
all has been made, and who with the Father and the
Holy Ghost is one only God, most singular, most
adorable, and blessed for ever and ever! Amen.
Ah! says S. Jerome to his Paulinus: "The learned
Plato never knew this, the eloquent Demosthenes was
ignorant of it." How sweet are thy words, O Lord, to
my palate, said that great king, more than honey to
my mouth!(2) Was not our burning within us, whilst he
spoke in the way?(3) said those happy pilgrims of
Emmaus, speaking of the flames of love with which
they were touched by the word of faith. But if divine
truths be so sweet, when proposed in the obscure
light of faith, O God, what shall they be when we
shall contemplate them in the light of the noonday of
glory!
The Queen of Saba, who at the greatness of Solomon's
renown had left all to go and see him, having arrived
in his presence, and having heard the wonders of the
wisdom which he poured out in his speeches, as one
astonished and lost in admiration, cried out that
what she had learnt by hearsay of this heavenly
wisdom was not half the knowledge which sight and
experience gave her.
Ah! how beautiful and dear are the truths which
faith discovers unto us by hearing! But when having
arrived in the heavenly Jerusalem, we shall see the
great Solomon, the King of Glory, seated upon the
thrown of his wisdom, manifesting by an
incomprehensible brightness the wonders and eternal
secrets of his sovereign truth, with such light that
our understanding will actually see what it had
believed here below - Ah! then, dearest Theotimus,
what raptures! what ecstasies! what admiration! what
love! what sweetness! No, never (shall we say in this
excess of sweetness) never could we have conceived
that we should see truths so delightsome. We believed
indeed all the glorious things that were said of
thee, O great city of God, but we could not conceive
the infinite greatness of the abysses of thy
delights.
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