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Sometimes the union is made without our co-operation,
save only by a simple following (suite), permitting
ourselves to be united to the divine goodness without
resistance, as a little child, in love with its
mother's breasts, and yet so feeble that it cannot
move itself towards them, nor cleave to them when
there; only it is - Ah! so happy, to be taken and
drawn within its mother's arms, and to be pressed by
her to her bosom.
Sometimes we co-operate, when, being drawn, we
willingly run,(1) to second the force of God's
goodness which draws us and clasps us to him by love.
Sometimes we seem to begin to join and fasten
ourselves to God before he joins himself to us,
because we feel the action of the union on our part,
without perceiving what God is doing on his side,
who, however, there is no doubt, always acts first on
us, though we do not always perceive his action: for
unless he united himself to us we should never unite
ourselves to him; he always chooses and lays hold of
us, before we choose or lay hold of him. But when,
following his imperceptible attractions, we begin to
unite ourselves to him, he sometimes makes the
continuation of our union, assisting our weakness,
and joining himself perceptibly to us, insomuch that
we feel him enter and penetrate our hearts with an
incomparable sweetness.
And sometimes also, as he drew us insensibly to
the union, he continues insensibly to aid and assist
us. And we know not indeed how so great a union is
made, yet know we well that our forces are not able
to make it, wherefore we justly argue that some
secret power is working insensibly in us: as skippers
with a cargo of iron perceiving their ships move
apace with a very light breeze, know that they are
near mountains of loadstone, which draw them
imperceptibly, and thus they perceive a sensible and
perceptible advancement caused by an insensible and
imperceptible means.
For so when we see our spirit unite itself ever
closer and closer to God, during the little efforts
which our will makes, we rightly judge that we have
too little wind to sail so fast, and that it must
needs be that the loadstone of our souls draws us by
the secret influence of his grace: which he would
leave imperceptible, that it may be more admirable,
and that undistracted by the sense of his drawings,
we may with more purity and simplicity be occupied in
uniting ourselves to his goodness.
Sometimes this union is made so insensibly that our
heart neither perceives the divine operation in her,
nor yet her own co-operation, but finds simply the
union itself insensibly effected, like Jacob, who
found himself married to Lia without thinking of it:
or rather, like another Samson, but more happy, the
heart finds itself netted and tied in the bands of
holy union, without having ever perceived it.
At other times we feel the embraces, the union being
made by sensible actions as well on God's side, as on
ours.
Sometimes the union is made by the will only, and
in the will only; and sometimes the understanding has
its part therein, because the will draws it after it
and applies it to its object, making it take a
special pleasure in being fastened down to the
consideration thereof; as we see that love causes in
our corporal eyes a profound and special attention,
to rivet them on the sight of what we love.
Sometimes this union is made by all the faculties
of the soul, which gather about the will, not to be
united to God themselves, not being all capable of
it, but to give more convenience to the will to make
its union; for if the other faculties were applied
each to its proper object, the soul working in them,
could not so perfectly give herself to the action by
which the union with God is made. Such is the variety
of unions.
Look at S. Martial (for he was, they say, the
blessed child mentioned in S. Mark): Our Saviour took
him, lifted him up, and held him for a good while in
his arms. O lovely little Martial, how happy thou art
to be laid hold of, taken up and carried, to be
united, joined and clasped to the heavenly bosom of
our Saviour, and kissed with his sacred mouth,
without any co-operation of thine, save that thou
didst not resist the receiving of those divine
caresses!
On the contrary, S. Simeon embraces our Saviour,
and clasps him to his bosom, our Saviour giving no
sign of co-operating in this union, though, as the
holy Church sings: "The old man carried the child,
but the child was governing the old man." S.
Bonaventure, touched with a holy humility, did not
only not unite himself to our Saviour, but withdrew
himself from his real presence, that is, from the
holy sacrament of the altar, when, hearing Mass one
day, our Saviour came to unite himself with him,
bringing him his holy sacrament. But this union being
made, - Ah! Theotimus, think with what fervour this
holy soul locked his Saviour in his heart!
On the contrary S. Catharine of Siena ardently
desiring our Saviour in the holy communion, pressing
and advancing her soul and affection towards him - he
came and joined himself unto her, entering into her
mouth with a thousand benedictions. So that our
Saviour began the union with S. Bonaventure, and S.
Catharine seemed to begin that which she had with her
Saviour.
The sacred spouse in the Canticles speaks as
having practised both sorts of unions. I to my
beloved, and his turning is towards me:(2) which is
as much as if she had said: I am united to my dear
love, and he likewise turns towards me, to the end
that uniting himself more and more unto me he may
become wholly mine. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved
to me, he shall abide between my breasts.(3) My soul,
says David, hath stuck close to thee: thy right hand
hath received me. (4) But in another place she
confesses that she is first taken, saying: My beloved
to me and I to him.(5) We make a holy union, by which
he joins himself to me and I join myself to him.
And yet to show that the whole union is ever made
by God's grace, which draws us unto it, and by its
attractions moves our soul and animates the movement
of our union towards him, she cries out, as being
wholly powerless: Draw me: yet to testify that she
will not let herself be drawn as a stone or a
galley-slave, but that on her side she will concur
and will mingle her feeble movements with the mighty
drawings of her lover: We will run after thee, she
says, to the odour of thy ointments.(6) And to make
it known that if she is strongly drawn by the will,
all the powers of the soul will make towards the
union: Draw me, says she, and we will run; the spouse
draws but one, and many run to the union. It is the
will only that God desires, but all the other powers
run after it to be united to God with it.
To this union the divine Shepherd of souls provoked
his dear Sulamitess. Put me, says he, as a seal upon
thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm.(7) To impress
properly a signet upon wax, one not only applies it,
but presses it hard down: so he desires that we
should be united unto him by a union so strict and
close, that we should remain marked with his seal.
The charity of Christ presses us.8( )O God! what
an example of excellent union! He was united to our
human nature by grace, as a vine to its elm, to make
it in some sort participate in his fruit; but seeing
this union undone by Adam's sin, he made another more
close and pressing union in the Incarnation, whereby
human nature remains for ever joined in personal
unity to the Divinity; and to the end that not human
nature only, but that every man might be intimately
united with his goodness, he instituted the Sacrament
of the most holy Eucharist, in which every one may
participate, to unite his Saviour to himself really
and by way of food. Theotimus, this sacramental union
urges and aids us towards the spiritual, of which we
speak.
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