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The love which we bear to God starts from the first
complacency which our heart feels on first perceiving
the divine goodness, when it begins to tend towards
it. Now when by the exercise of love we augment and
strengthen this first complacency, as we have
explained in the preceding chapters, we then draw
into our hearts the divine perfections and enjoy the
divine goodness by rejoicing in it, practising the
first part of the amorous contentment of love
expressed by the sacred spouse, saying: My beloved to
me.(1)
But because this amorous complacency being in us
who have it, ceases not to be in God in whom we have
it, it gives us reciprocally to his divine goodness;
so that by this holy love of complacency we enjoy the
goods which are in God as though they were our own;
but because the divine perfections are stronger than
our spirit, entering into it they possess it
reciprocally, insomuch that we not only say God is
ours by this complacency but also that we are to
Him.(2)
The herb aproxis (as we have said elsewhere) has
so great a correspondence with fire, that though at a
distance from it, as soon as it sees it, it draws the
flame and begins to burn, conceiving fire not so much
from the heat as from the light of the fire presented
to it. When then by this attraction it is united to
the fire, if it could speak, might it not well say:
my wellbeloved fire is mine since I draw it to me and
enjoy its flames, but I am also its, for though I
drew it to me it reduced me into it as more strong
and noble; it is my fire and I am its herb: I draw it
and it sets me on fire.
So our heart being brought into the presence of
the divine goodness, and having drawn the perfections
thereof by the complacency it takes in them, may
truly say: God's goodness is all mine since I enjoy
his excellences, and I again am wholly his, seeing
that his delights possess me.
By complacency our, soul, like Gideon's fleece, is
wholly filled with heavenly dew, and this dew belongs
to the fleece because it falls upon it, and again the
fleece is the dew's because it is steeped in it and
receives virtue from it.
Which belongs more to the other, the pearl to the
oyster or the oyster to the pearl? The pearl is the
oyster's because she drew it to her, but the oyster
is the pearl's because it gives her worth and value.
Complacency makes us possessors of God, drawing
into us his perfections, but it makes us also
possessed of God, applying and fastening us to his
perfections.
Now in this complacency we satiate our soul with
delights in such a manner that we do not yet cease to
desire to be satiated, and relishing the divine
goodness we desire yet to relish it; while satiating
ourselves we would still eat, as whilst eating we
feel ourselves satisfied.
The chief of the Apostles, having said in his
first epistle that the ancient prophets had
manifested the graces which were to abound amongst
Christians, and amongst other things our Saviour's
passion, and the glory which was to follow it (as
well by the resurrection of his body as also by the
exaltation of his name), in the end concludes that
the very angels desire to behold the mysteries of the
redemption in this divine Saviour: On whom, says he,
the angels desire to look.(3) But how can this be
understood, that the angels who see the Redeemer and
in him all the mysteries of our salvation, do yet
desire to see him?
Theotimus, verily they see him continually, but
with a view so agreeable and delightsome that the
complacency they take in it satiates them without
taking away their desire, and makes them desire
without removing their satiety; the fruition is not
lessened by desire, but perfected, as their desire is
not cloyed but intensified by fruition.
The fruition of a thing which always contents
never lessens, but is renewed and flourishes
incessantly; it is ever agreeable, ever desirable.
The perpetual contentment of heavenly lovers produces
a desire perpetually content, as their continual
desire begets in them a contentment perpetually
desired.
Good which is finite in giving the possession ends
the desire, and in giving the desire takes away the
possession, being unable to be at once possessed and
desired. But the infinite good makes desire reign in
possession and possession in desire, finding a way to
satiate desire by a holy presence, and yet to make it
live by the greatness of its excellence, which
nourishes in all those that possess it a desire
always content and a content always full of desire.
Consider, Theotimus, such as hold in their mouth the
herb sciticuin; according to report they are never
hungry nor thirsty, it is so satisfying, and yet
never lose their appetite, it nourishes them so
deliciously. When our will meets God it reposes in
him, taking in him a sovereign complacency, yet
without staying the movement of her desire, for as
she desires to love so she loves to desire, she has
the desire of love and the love of desire. The repose
of the heart consists not in immobility but in
needing nothing, not in having no movement but in
having no need to move.
The damned are in eternal movement without any
mixture of rest; we mortals who are yet in this
pilgrimage have, now movement, now rest, in our
affections; the Blessed ever have repose in their
movements and movement in their repose; only God has
repose without movement, because he is sovereignly a
pure and substantial act.
Now although according to the ordinary condition
of this mortal life we have not repose in movement,
yet still, when we practise the acts of holy love, we
find repose in the movement of our affections, and
movement in the repose of the complacency which we
take in our well-beloved, receiving hereby a
foretaste of the future felicity to which we aspire.
If it be true that the chameleon lives on air,
wheresoever he goes in the air he finds food, and
though he move from one place to another, it is not
to find wherewith to be filled, but to exercise
himself within that element which is also his food,
as fishes do in the sea. He who desires God while
possessing him, does not desire him in order to seek
him, but in order to exercise this affection within
the very good which he enjoys; for the heart does not
make this movement of desire as aiming at the
enjoyment of a thing not had, since it is already
had, but as dilating itself in the enjoyment which it
has; not to obtain the good, but to recreate and
please itself therein; not to gain the enjoyment of
it but to take enjoyment in it.
So we walk and move to go to some delicious
garden, where, being arrived, we cease not to walk
and exercise ourselves, not now to get there, but
being there to walk and pass our time therein: we
walk in order to go and enjoy the pleasantness of the
garden, being there we walk to take our pleasure in
the enjoyment of it. Seek ye the Lord and be
strengthened, seek his face evermore.(4) We always
seek him whom we always love, says the great S.
Augustine: love seeks that which it has found, not to
have it but to have it always.
Finally, Theotimus, the soul which is in the exercise
of the love of complacency cries continually in her
sacred silence: It suffices me that God is God, that
his goodness is infinite, that his perfection is
immense; whether I die or whether I live matters
little to me since my dear well-beloved lives
eternally an all-triumphant life. Death itself cannot
trouble a heart which knows that its sovereign love
lives. It is sufficient for a heart that loves that
he whom it loves more than itself is replenished with
eternal happiness, seeing that it lives more in him
whom it loves than in him whom it animates; yea, that
it lives not itself, but its well-beloved lives in
it.
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