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Honour, my dear Theotimus, is not in him who is
honoured, but in him who honours: for how often it
happens that he whom we honour knows nothing of it,
nor has so much as thought about it.
How often we praise such as know us not, or who
are sleeping; and yet according to the common
estimation of men, and their ordinary manner of
conceiving, it seems that we do one some good when we
do him honour, and that we give him much when we give
him titles and praises, and we find no difficulty in
saying that a man is rich in honour, glory,
reputation, praise, though indeed we know that all
this is outside the person who is honoured.
He oftentimes receives no manner of profit
therefrom, according to a saying ascribed to the
great S. Augustine: O poor Aristotle, thou art being
praised where thou art not, and where thou art, thou
art being burned. What fruit, I pray you, do Caesar
and Alexander the Great reap from so many vain words
which some vain souls employ in their praise?
God being replenished with a goodness which
surpasses all praise and honour, receives no
advantage nor increase by all the benedictions which
we give him. He is neither richer nor greater, nor
more content or happy by them, for his happiness, his
content, his greatness, and his riches neither are
nor can be any other thing than the divine infinity
of his goodness.
At the same time, since, according to our ordinary
estimation, honour is held one of the greatest
effects of our benevolence towards others, and since
by it we not only do not imply any indigence in those
we honour, but rather protest that they abound in
excellence, we therefore make use of this kind of
benevolence towards God, who not only approves it,
but exacts it, as suitable to our condition, and so
proper to testify the respectful love we bear him,
that he has ordained we should render and refer all
honour and glory unto him.
Thus then the soul who has taken a great
complacency in God's infinite perfection, seeing that
she cannot wish him any increase of goodness, because
he has infinitely more than she can either wish or
conceive, desires at least that his name may be
blessed, exalted, praised, honoured and adored ever
more and more.
And beginning with her own heart, she ceases not
to provoke it to this holy exercise, and, as a sacred
bee, flies hither and thither amongst the flowers of
the divine works and excellences, gathering from them
a sweet variety of complacencies, from which she
works up and composes the heavenly honey of
benedictions, praises, and confessions of honour, by
which, as far as she is able, she magnifies and
glorifies the name of her well-beloved: in imitation
of the great Psalmist, who having gone round, and as
it were in spirit run over the wonders of the divine
goodness, immolated on the altar of his heart the
mystic victim of the utterances of his voice, by
canticles and psalms of admiration and benediction: I
have gone round, and have offered up in his
tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation: I will sing,
and recite a psalm to the Lord.(1)
But, Theotimus, this desire of praising God which
holy benevolence excites in our hearts is insatiable,
for the soul that is touched with it would wish to
have infinite praises to bestow upon her
well-beloved, because she finds his perfections more
than infinite: so that, finding herself to fall far
short of being able to satisfy her desire, she makes
extreme efforts of affection to praise at least in
some measure this goodness all worthy of praise, and
these efforts of benevolence are marvellously
augmented by complacency: for in proportion as the
soul finds God good, relishing more and more his
sweetness, and taking complacency in his infinite
goodness, she would also raise higher the
benedictions and praises she gives him.
And again, as the soul grows warm in praising the
incomprehensible sweetness of God, she enlarges and
dilates the complacency she takes in him, and by this
enlargement she more strongly excites herself to his
praise. So that the affection of complacency and that
of praise, by these reciprocal movements and mutual
inclinations, advance one another with great and
continual increase.
So nightingales, according to Pliny, take such
complacency in their songs, that, by reason of this
complacency, for fifteen days and fifteen nights they
never cease warbling, forcing themselves to sing
better in emulous striving with one another; so that
when they sing the best, they take a greater
complacency, and this increase of complacency makes
them force themselves to greater efforts of trilling,
augmenting in such sort their complacency by their
song and their song by their complacency, that it is
often found that they die and their throats burst
with their singing. Birds worthy the fair name of
philomel, since they die thus, of and for the love of
melody.
O God! my Theotimus, how the soul ardently pressed
with affection to praise her God, is touched with a
dolour most delicious and a delight most dolorous,
when after a thousand efforts of praise she comes so
short. Alas! she would wish, this poor nightingale,
to raise her accents ever higher, and perfect her
melody, the better to sing the praises of her
wellbeloved. By how much more she praises, by so much
more is she delighted in praising: and by how much
greater her delight in praising is, by so much her
pain is greater that she cannot yet more praise him;
still, to find what content she can in this passion,
she makes all sorts of efforts, and in the midst of
them faints and fails, as it happened to the most
glorious S. Francis, who amidst the pleasure he had
in praising God and singing his canticles of love,
shed a great abundance of tears, and often let fall
through feeblessness, what he might be holding in his
hands: being like a sacred nightingale all outspent,
and often losing respiration through the effort of
aspiration after the praises of him whom he could
never praise sufficiently.
But hear an agreeable similitude upon this
subject, drawn from the name which this loving Saint
gave his religious; for he called them Cicalas, by
reason of the nightly praises they sang to God.
Cicalas, Theotimus, as though they were nature's
organs, have their breasts set with pipes; and to
sing the better they live only on dew, which they
take not by the mouth, for they have none, but suck
it by a certain little tongue they have on the
breast, by which they utter their cries with so much
noise that they seem to be nothing but voice.
Now this is the state of the sacred lover; for all
the faculties of her soul are as so many pipes which
she has in her breast, to repeat the canticles and
praises of the well-beloved. Her devotion in the
midst of all these is the tongue of her heart,
according to S. Bernard, by which she receives the
dew of the divine perfections, sucking and drawing
them to her, as her food, by the most holy
complacency which she takes in them; and by the same
tongue of devotion she utters all her voices of
prayer, praise, canticles, psalms, benedictions,
according to the testimony of one of the most
glorious spiritual cicalas that was ever heard, who
sang thus: Bless the Lord, 0 my soul: and let all
that is within me bless his holy name.(2) For is it
not as though he had said, I am a mystical cicala, my
soul, my spirit, my thoughts, all the faculties that
are collected within me, are organ pipes. Let all
these for ever bless the name and sound the praises
of my God. I will bless the Lord at all times, his
praise shall be always in my mouth. In the Lord shall
my soul be praised; let the meek hear and rejoice.(3)
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