Treatise on the Love of GodBook V. The two chief acts of divine love, which are complacency and benevolence

Love, as we have said already, is neither more nor less than the tending and outpouring of the heart towards that which is good by means of the pleasure or complacence it finds therein; so that pleasure is the great motive of love, as love is of pleasure.

This tending is exercised towards God after the following manner. By faith we know the Godhead to be an Incomprehensible Gulf of all Perfection, Supremely Infinite in Excellence, and Infinitely Supreme in Goodness. This truth, as taught by faith, we dwell upon in meditation, whether it be the collective perfection or the individual, e.g. the Omnipotence, Wisdom, Eternity, etc., of God. Now when the understanding is thoroughly impressed with the grandeur of His Goodness, our will cannot but be moved to delight in such Goodness; and then we use our free-will and self-control, stimulating our heart to renew its first outburst of complacency by means of acts of joyful acknowledgment: “He is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend, O daughters of Jerusalem !”' Blessed be God in His Goodness, and thrice blessed I, in life and death, knowing how vast are His Riches and Goodness!

Thus acknowledging and rejoicing in the Goodness we behold in God, we produce that act of love which is technically called “complacency,” for the soul takes infinitely greater delight in the Divine Pleasure than in its own. And this love it is which so filled the saints, causing them to dwell with such delight on the Perfection of their Beloved, and to rejoice in His Name: “Be ye sure that the Lord He is God ;” “O God, Thou art my God. . . The Lord Himself is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup ;”? “It is good for me to hold me fast by God. . . God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”3 It is by this complacency that He is our God, because thereby our heart embraces and possesses Him. He is our heritage, because thereby we enjoy His gifts, and derive all manner of delight from them. By this complacency we spiritually eat and drink the Perfections of the Godhead, for we draw them into our own heart, and they become ours.

Jacob’s flock reproduced in their young the colours they beheld in the fountain whence they drank,‘and in like wise the soul which dwells in loving contemplation on God reproduces in itself the colours, i.e. the marvels of perfection, which it beholds, and, beholding, appropriates. Ah! how rapturous will be that joy when among the blessed it is given us to behold the Beloved of our hearts as a boundless Sea of delight, Whose waters are all Perfection and Goodness! Verily then, like the hart weary with the chase, we shall plunge into the living waters, and fill our souls with that fulness of bliss, and the Bridegroom will come unto us, and make His abode with us.5 This is the loving theft of love, which, without causing the Beloved to pale, steals His colours; without despoiling Him, clothes itself with His robe; takes all He has without depriving Him of anything; even as the atmosphere absorbs light without diminishing that of the sun, or the mirror reflects human beauty without depriving him who looks therein of aught.

“Their abominations were according as they loved,” says the Prophet Hosea of evil men;' and in like manner we may say of the good, that they are “according” to that they love. It is recorded of S. Clara de Montefalco that her delight in meditation upon the Passion and the Trinity was so great, that the symbols thereof were stamped upon her heart, which became like to that she loved. And S. Paul so greatly loved the Lord’s Life, Passion, and Death, that they filled his heart; his will through dilection, his memory through meditation, his understanding through contemplation. But how did the Dear Lord fill the Apostle’s heart? Through the channel of complacent love; for he says, ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”? Bear in mind that the only difference between glorying in any one and taking pleasure in Him, is that he who glories adds honour to pleasure, inasmuch as honour cannot be without pleasure, although pleasure may exist without honour. So that S. Paul had such delight in, and felt so highly honoured in that Divine Goodness which was set forth in the Life and Death of Jesus, that he found no pleasure in aught else. And therefore he gloried only in the Cross, saying, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”3

Thrice blessed is that soul whose chief delight is in realising God and His Infinite Goodness; for it is through this door that the Beloved “will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.”? We feed upon His sweetness, and are satisfied therewith, through the boundless delight we feel. And it is called a supper, because of the rest which follows, since complacent love causes us to rest under its shadow, and gently feed therein. You know that the heart feeds on that wherein it takes delight, as we say, e.g., that this man feeds on honour, another on riches; and the Wise Man says, “The mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness,” ? while the Word Himself said, “My meat is to do the Will of Him that sent Me.” Physicians and philosophers agree in saying that what pleases the appetite feeds a man.

“Let my Beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits.”4 And the Beloved does come into His garden when He comes into the loving soul; for since His “delights are with the sons of men,” 5 where can He better dwell than where He has set His Own Image and Likeness? It is a garden wherein He Himself has planted the delight we feel in His Goodness, whereon we feed, just as His Goodness feeds on our delight; and this reciprocal pleasure excites that incomparable love of complacence whereby the soul becomes the garden of her Beloved, and renders to Him its “pleasant fruits.” It draws God’s Heart to its own, and He sheds His precious balms therein, thus fulfilling the words, “The King hath brought me into His chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in Thee, we will remember Thy Love more than wine: the upright love Thee.”⁵ What are the “chambers” of the King of Love but His Breast, which is full of sweetness to His own, as the mother’s breast is full of milk for her babe. Thus the soul gazes on the countless treasures of its Beloved, and feels satisfied and abounds, for all is its own through love. And even as the babe thrills with eagerness at the prospect of satisfying its hunger, so the soul thrills with delight as it contemplates the brightness of that exceeding love. Verily, “the upright love Thee.”

Nature has placed the maternal breast close to the heart so that by its warmth milk may be produced. And thus the babe’s first nourishment should come of love: “Thy Love is better than wine.”? Observe that the comparison between milk and wine is so grateful to the Bride that she repeats it over and over again. Wine is the milk of the grape, milk the wine of the breast. The Bride not only likens her Beloved to apes, but to grapes of Cyprus 3—that is, highly perfumed. Moses says the Lord gave the Israelites “the pure blood of the grape ;”⁶ and when Jacob prophesied Judah’s fertile portion in the Promised Land, he foretold the highest blessing of Christians, saying that the Saviour would “wash His garments ”—i.e. His Church—“in wine, and His clothes in the blood of grapes.”5 Wine and milk are not more different than the juice of the grape (called must) and wine; for as the must gradually takes colour by reason of the sun’s heat, and turns into wine, so the heart’s blood changes its colour through heat and becomes food for the babe.

Milk, which is the heart’s food, composed solely of love, represents mystical knowledge and theology, i.e. the sweetness coming of a loving complacence in meditation on things Divine; while wine signifies

Cant.i.4. © 7 Cant.i.2. 3 See Vulgate.

ordinary worldly knowledge, which is acquired by dint of exertion under the wine-press of argument and research. And surely the milk we draw from our Saviour’s Love is incomparably better than the wine of human knowledge; prepared as it is for His children without any forethought of theirs, it is “sweet as ointment poured forth,” it gladdens without intoxicating, it uplifts without taking a man out of himself.

When Isaac kissed his favourite son, “he smelled the smell of his raiment,” and finding it exceedingly grateful, cried out, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.”* The raiment and the perfume were Jacob’s, but Isaac had the enjoyment and the complacency therein. And so the soul which clings to its Saviour in love is filled with the sweetness of His perfumes, and cries out, “The smell of Thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. . . . How much better is Thy Love than wine, and the smell of Thine ointments than all spices!”

Our love to God springs from that first delight which the soul experiences so soon as it perceives His Goodness when first reaching after Him. And when this first delight is confirmed and strength- Gen. xxvii. 27. * Cant. iv. 10, 11. The concluding paragraph of this chapter is a quotation from S. Augustine rendered in verse, probably S. Francis’ own translation :—

M’offre son laict pour en manger;

De l'autre la playe salutaire

Jette son sang pour m’abbreuver.”

ened by means of exercising this love, as before said, then we attract the Divine Perfection to our own heart by our enjoyment thereof, according to the words, “My Beloved is mine.”¹ But inasmuch as this loving delight, though in us, comes of God, it reciprocally gives us to Him, and we become His, even as He is ours.

The herb Aproxis has so close an affinity with fire, that even while at a distance it attracts the flame and kindles, not so much from the heat, as from the brightness thereof. Surely if it could speak it would say, “My beloved fire is mine, since I have attracted it, and rejoice in its flames; but I too belong to it, for if I attracted it, it has absorbed me, being the strongest and best. It is my fire, I its fuel; I attract it, it burns me.” So the heart which has drawn God’s Perfection into it may say, “God’s Goodness is mine, since I taste thereof, and I am His, since He possesses and fills me wholly.” Through this complacency our soul, like Gideon’s fleece, is filled with the dew of Heaven. The dew belongs to the fleece, for it fell thereon; but the fleece belongs to the dew, for it is steeped therewith. Which belongs most to the other, the shell or the pearl? The pearl belongs to the shell, where it was attracted; but the shell belongs to the pearl, whence it derives all its value. The love of complacence makes us possessors of God, by reason of His Perfections, which it attracts, and causes God to possess us, knitting us to those His Perfections. And in this complacency we drink so deeply of satisfaction that we long for more, and tasting Heavenly sweetness, we fain would taste again, eating, we would yet be filled.

S. Peter says that the Prophets searched and inquired diligently, and prophesied of the grace that should come unto us Christians, both by His Sufferings and the Glory that should follow, “which things the angels desire to look into.”3 How can the angels, who see the Redeemer and behold all His Mysteries, yet desire to look into this? Verily, they behold Him, and beholding is so sweet, that their very delight therein satisfies them and yet kindles desire, their enjoyment not being hindered by desire, but rather perfected, even as their desire is not extinguished but sharpened by enjoyment.

There is a herb called Sceticus, of which it is said that those who chew it suffer neither from hunger nor thirst, it is so satisfying, and yet their appetite never fails, it is so delicious. And in like wise when the will finds God it rests in Him with perfect delight, while yet it continues to long after Him; desiring to love, it loves to desire. Rest of heart does not consist in total immovability, but in wanting nothing; it is not to be motionless, but to have no need to move.

The souls of the lost are in perpetual motion without any rest; we in our pilgrim state are one while at rest, another in motion. But the blessed always enjoy rest in motion and motion in rest, while God only enjoys motionless rest, inasmuch as He is in Himself an All-pure Act. And although the ordinary laws of our mortal life do not give us rest amid our movements, yet whensoever we attempt to carry out the conditions of immortal life by means of holy love, we find rest to the movement of our affections, and movement in our rest in our Beloved, as a foretaste of that blessedness at which we aim.

If it be true that the chameleon lives on air, it cannot fail to find food everywhere; and when it moves from place to place, it is not in search of food, but rather as sporting amid its pastures, as fish sport in the sea. So he who while possessing God yet longs for Him, longs not as needing to seek Him, but as exercising those very affections which he already enjoys; for the heart entertains such desire, not as seeking what it already has, but as revelling therein; even as, having walked to some delicious garden, we continue to walk when there, no longer in order to arrive, but the more to enjoy its charms. “Seek the Lord and His strength: seek His Face evermore.”' S. Augustine says that we are for ever seeking that which we love eternally; love persists in seeking that which it has found, not in order to have it, but to have it for ever. In a word, that soul which practises the love of complacence cries out continually amid its sacred silence, “Enough for me that God is God, His Goodness Infinite, His Perfection Boundless. Whether I live or die, what matter, since my Beloved lives and reigns eternally?” neither can death cast a shadow over him who knows that His Sovereign Love lives. Enough for the loving soul to know that its Beloved possesses all things, since its life is in Him more than in itself: “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”?

Sympathy, pity, or mercy, call it which you will, is simply an affection which causes us to share the pain or suffering of him we love, drawing his misery into our own heart, as it were (whence the word misericordia), just as complacency draws the pleasure and satisfaction of the beloved object into our heart. And both are alike the result of love, by the virtue it has of uniting the heart to the thing loved, and thereby rendering the joys and sorrows of friends common. Now sympathy throws great light upon complacent love.

Sympathy is in degree according to the love whence it springs. Thus the sympathy of a mother for her child is intense, as we so often find mentioned in Holy Scripture. Consider the sympathy which filled Hagar’s

heart for Ishmael’s suffering when he lay athirst in the wilderness ;' or that of David for Absalom ;? or the parental soul of S. Paul, when he said, “Who is weak, and I am not weak?”3 when he had “great heaviness and continual sorrow,”¹ when he was “dying daily,”5 for his children in the faith, And above all, consider the love which pierced the heart of the Mother of our Lord with all His pains and griefs, His Passion and Cross; how the nails which went through His Sacred Body, the thorns which pierced His Brow, were verily the “sword which shall pierce through thy own soul also,” as foretold to her,sorrows of which she might indeed say that they were “a bundle of myrrh betwixt her breasts.”7. And again, consider Jacob, who, on hearing of the death of Joseph, cried out, “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” 8

Sympathy also depends in its degree on the suffering beheld in those we love, since, even where the love be small, exceeding suffering draws forth much pity. Thus Caesar wept for Pompey; and the daughters of Jerusalem wept for our Lord,® although the greater part among them had not cleaved to Him; and Job’s friends lamented sore over him." Jacob’s heart was rent at the thought of Joseph’s cruel death; Hagar went aside, unable to see her child die; and the Lord wept over Lazarus and over Jerusalem. Even so complacent love is increased in proportion as a soul is dear to us, and we enter into its joy. When Jacob knew that his son lived, his “spirit revived.” What is meant by reviving? Truly our spirits actually die only when sin separates us from God, but they die sometimes, so to say, in another, as instanced in Jacob; for in his great sympathy love drew Joseph’s death into Jacob’s heart, and by a miracle of which

™ Gen, xxi. 16. ? 2 Sam. xviii. 33. 3 2 Cor. xi. 29. love alone is capable, the Patriarch was as one dead by reason of a son who was really alive. But when he knew that his son lived, his love overthrew this fictitious death and brought back real life, and so he “revived,” saying, “It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive.” And when with his own eyes he beheld his greatness, he fell on Joseph’s neck and wept, and cried out, “Now let me die joyful, since I have seen thy face, and thou art yet alive.” * See how Jacob pours forth his joy, which is so great that it makes even death itself joyful and welcome. Whether of those two was gladdest at Joseph’s prosperity, he who enjoyed it, or Jacob who rejoiced in it? Surely, if the point of prosperity is the enjoyment it brings, the father had as much and more than the son; for the son, all viceroy as he was, had a ruler’s toils and cares, but the father enjoyed it through the love of complacency, and tasted nought save his son’s greatness and prosperity, without any care or toil. “I shall die content.” If death itself could not affect his joy, what else could do so? “Love is strong as death ;”? and the joy of love overpowers the sadness of death, for death cannot extinguish, but rather revives it. There is a fountain near Grenoble, to which S. Augustine bears witness that a fire burns within; and this holy love is so strong, that its flame survives amid the utmost bitterness of death, and “many waters cannot quench love.” 3

When I behold my Saviour on the Mount of

Olives, His Soul “sorrowful even unto death,” I am forced to cry out, “What but love itself in its boundless compassion could so draw our misery into Thy All-powerful Heart?” And how can the devout mind contemplate the Sorrows of the Divine Lover of souls without a loving holy grief? And remembering that they were not the result of weakness, but rather of His Exceeding and Powerful Affection, surely such a soul will cry out with the Bride of the Canticles, “1 am black” with sympathetic grief, “but comely” through love. The Sufferings of my Beloved are although “the sun had looked upon me;”? for who could see one dearer than life in such anguish, and not be withered by the sorrow? The tents of the wandering tribes are thick with dust, and I, like them, am weighed down with distress as I gaze upon my Saviour’s Woe, But forasmuch as those Woes are the result of love\ while they grieve me through sympathy, they win me though affection. How could a faithful Bride fail to rejoice in beholding the Bridegroom’s so great Love? And thus beneath the blackness of sorrow we find/the comeliness of love; and while I mourn over the Passion and Death of my King, I rejoice over His Exceeding Love amid all this travail and heaviness. So the-re are at once the “black” tents of Kedar, and the broidered curtains of Solomon. Love makes the unlike “dike; » my Beloved is a burning thorn-bush, and I am as a lily among thorns.”? I suffer in His Pangs, but I rejoice in His Love; and “if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified together.” 3

This was the love through which the seraphic S. Francis received the stigmata, and S. Catherine cf Sienna the precious wounds—love sharpening the edge of sympathy. Thus the loving delight we feel in our Dear Lord’s Love quickens infinitely our compassion for His griefs, as, on the other hand, sympathy with those griefs enhances love’s delight. And so the two, sympathetic love and loving sympathy, struggle, like another Esau and Jacob, in an extasy of love and pain such as S. Francis and S. Catherine more than others experienced; and thus is born that precious union of the heart with God which, as a mystical Benjamin, is the offspring both of suffering and love.'

Words cannot tell how the Lord longs to enter into our souls through this sympathetic love. ‘Open to Me, My sister, My love, My undefiled,” He cries; “for My Head is filled with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night.”* What is this dew but the sorrows of His Passion? Pearls are but dewdrops shed by the night over the sea, and caught within the shell; and so the Beloved One charged with the dewdrops of love of that night of suffering and that darkened noonday sun, calls on thee to open thy heart, even as the shell expands to the dew, promising to shed the drops of His Passion within it, sure as they are to turn to gracious pearls of consolation.

God’s Love towards us always begins with

Benevolence, for it is He Who creates all that good in us, wherein He afterwards takes delight. He raised up David after His Own Will, and then “found him a man after His Own Heart”3 through love.

' Gen... xxxv..18. ? Cant. v. 2. 3 Acts xiii. 22. He created first the universe for man, and then man for the universe, giving to each thing that measure of goodness which was fitting, in His Pure Benevolence, and then beholding the whole “that it was very good,” He rested lovingly from His Work.

But on the other hand, our love to God begins with the complacence we find in His Sovereign Goodness and Infinite Perfection, and thence we go on to benevolence. And as God’s complacence in His creatures is nothing else than the continuance of His Benevolence towards them, so our benevolence towards God is but the continuance and confirmation of our complacence.in Him.

Now this love of benevolence towards God is as follows. It is impossible for us really to desire any increase of good to God, because His Goodness is infinitely more perfect than anything we can imagine or desire. Desire can only have respect to something future, and there is no future good with God, all being so essentially present with Him, that the presence of good in His Divine Majesty is neither more nor less than His Divinity itself. Since then we can have no actual desire on God’s behalf, we cry out with David, “Lord, Thou art my God, my goods are nothing unto Thee.”¹ What is there but is “nothing” unto Thee? yet were it possible that Thou couldst want aught, I would desire it for Thee at the cost of my life and being; were it possible to add any good thing to Thee, I would pour out my life in one long wish to give it Thee. But since this may not be, I rejoice above all things in that Thy Supreme Good to which nothing can be added. Yet were it possible to add aught thereto, then would I with my whole being desire so to do. And thus in the very thought of what is impossible I can through fervent love offer somewhat to Thy Glory. Some such thing S. Augustine was wont to do.

Again, another form of the love of benevolence towards God is when, although unable to add to His intrinsic Glory, we yet fervently desire to increase it ourselves, and to rejoice more and more in His Goodness. And this not because of our own satisfaction in so doing, but for His Sake alone; just as we do not seek to bestow sympathy for the sake of the sorrow with which it fills us, but because that sympathy unites us with the object of our love. And by means of such unitive love we become ever more and more like to the Mother of Love, whose soul magnified the Lord, and her spirit “rejoiced in God her Saviour,” thereby to show that she so magnified Him through her exceeding delight in the Divine Goodness. -

Passion.

Hus the love of benevolence leads us to desire an ever-increasing delight, in God’s Goodness, and with a view to this increase the soul sedulously weans itself from all other pleasures the more entirely to give itself to God. A religious once asked the devout Brother Giles, one of the first and holiest associates of S. Francis, how he could best please God, to which the Brother replied by chanting “One to One, one to One;” and when called to explain, he said, “Always give your soul, which is one, to God alone, Who is One.” The soul is frittered away by pleasure, and a succession of worldly pleasures dissipates and hinders it from seriously heeding that which it is bound to take in God. A true lover scarce finds any delight save in the object of his love. Thus S. Paul “counted all things but dung” when compared with Christ. And the Bride has no thought save for her Beloved: “He is mine, and I am His.”¹ The soul that loves thus would not willingly linger even among angels, save in so far as they could promote its love. “Saw ye Him Whom my soul loveth?”? ' When Magdalene met the angels at the sepulchre, and they would have comforted her, she had no words for them save “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him ;”3 and when, turning, she beheld, as she thought, the gardener, she was not satisfied; flowers could not comfort her, she had thorns within her heart, she sought the Crucified: “Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.” And then, so soon as He called her by her name, her soul melted away for joy, and she could only cry out, “Master!” Not angels, not the Lord Himself, until she recognised the familiar form which had won her love, could satisfy her. The kings of the East did not pause to admire the beauty of Jerusalem, or to gaze upon their leading star; they hurried on till they reached the Babe of Bethlehem. And the Mother of Fair Love and the Spouse of Holy Love could not linger amid kinsfolk and acquaintance, but went “in sorrow seeking” the only object of their love.4 The craving to increase holy pleasure turns from all else the more earnestly to exercise that to which God’s Benevolence calls it.

And the better to magnify this Sovereign Lover, the soul is ever “seeking His Face,” 5 studying its endless beauties, and the countless motives for an ever-increasing delight therein. Thus David perpetually rehearses the marvellous works of the Lord, and the Bride tells out the perfections of her Beloved one by one,‘stimulating her soul to the highest enjoyment of them, praising His Holy Name, and bringing all else into captivity to Him Who is above all things.

Our lies in him who offers it, not him who receives it. Do we not often honour those who are altogether unconscious of the fact? those who do not even know of our existence? And after the manner of human thought and parlance, we hold that we confer a benefit on one whom we honour, especially if we bestow the meed of praise upon him; and we speak of a man rich in honour, glory; reputation, and praise, although all these be wholly without their recipient, who may receive no advantage whatever from them, as S. Augustine is reputed to have said, "Alas, poor Aristotle! praised where thou art not, burnt where thou art.” I would ask what benefit Caesar or Alexander the Great derive from all the worthless praise which has been lavished on them? God, Whose Goodness surpasses all praise and honour, can receive no addition or advantage from the homage we render Him; He is not richer, greater, or more blessed in consequence, for all these depend solely upon the Divine Infiniteness of His Goodness. Yet inasmuch as, according to our ordinary apprehension, honour is looked upon as a token of the goodwill we bear to others, and so far from implying any lack on their part by it, we rather express our belief in their abundant excellence thereby; so we exercise this manner of benevolence towards God, Who not merely accepts it at our hands, but so entirely demands it as suitable to our relative position, and a testimony of the venerating love we bear Him, that He has even commanded us to offer Him honour and glory.

So, then, the soul which delights in God’s Boundless Perfection, while conscious that it can in nowise add to or desire the increase of His Goodness, which is greater than anything we can conceive, yet asks that His Holy Name may be blessed, exalted, praised, and adored ever more and more. Therefore as a bee it hovers from the flower of one good work to another, gathering up all manner of holy affections, and producing thereout the Divine honey of blessing and praise wherewith to magnify the Name of the Beloved, emulating the royal Psalmist, who offered his mystic outpourings of praise and thanksgiving upon the altar of his heart."

And this thirst for the praise of God is insatiable, because the soul which experiences it craves for infinite outpouring, realising as it does that His Perfection is more than infinite; and feeling incapable of satisfying that craving, it bursts forth in all manner of fervent efforts, which wax yet warmer through the love of complacence, since the more the soul tastes of the sweetness of God’s Beauty, the more it longs worthily to praise and glorify Him. And with worthier praise the soul’s love grows stronger; and so, in mutual reaction, love and praise ever wax more and more powerful to the end. Even so it is, Pliny tells us, with the nightingales, who during some fortnight cease not to warble, striving each to surpass the other; and when their song is sweetest, they are yet keener to excel, making such intense efforts thereto, that sometimes they die of the very excess,—worthy, forsooth, of the name Philomel, dying thus of love and of song.

Ah yes! and truly the heart which pants to praise God knows a mightily sweet anguish and a piercingly sharp sweetness when at best it falls so short!

**« Mon cceur volant ¢a et 1&

Des aisles de sa pensée,

D'une void haut eslancée,

Un sacrifice immola,

Sur la harp bien sonnée

Au Seigneur Dieu de Sion.”

Nightingale-like, it would fain ever raise its voice in sweeter melody to laud its Beloved One; the louder its praise, the greater its delight therein. It knows no grief save its own shortcomings; and at last its very efforts exhaust it, as we find S. Francis bursting into tears, and falling down in the passionate outpouring of his love of God, like a nightingale that bursts its heart in the attempt to sing a louder, ever louder song: of praise!

That most loving of all saints used to liken his religious to cicadae because they were wont to praise God through the night. The cicada's breast is full of pipes, like a natural organ, and that they may sing the better, they live only upon dew, imbibing even that not by their mouth, but by a kind of trunk issuing from their body, whence proceeds their loud, sonorous chirp. And in the loving soul, in like manner, every faculty is but as a pipe wherewith to chant the praise of the Beloved; and its devotion is as the tongue of its heart, S. Bernard says, by which it gathers up the dew of heavenly perfection, and with the same it pours forth all manner of praise and blessing, even as the sweetest of all songsters exclaims, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me praise His Holy Name!”? “TI will alway give thanks unto the Lord; His praise shall ever be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad !”3

The heart which swells with longing to praise God beyond its own power goes forth to summon all nature to join: “O praise the Lord with me!” even as the Three Children in the fiery furnace, and David, who in his eagerness calls upon all things in Heaven and earth, in reckless confusion, to swell his song of praise—angels and dragons, fire and hail, snow and vapours, wind and storm, mountains and hills, trees and cattle, worms and feathered fowl." And he winds up his many Psalms of praise with the final burst, “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!”2 And thus S. Francis invoked the sun and all creation to join the praise he could never sufficiently express for his soul’s sweet Saviour. And the Bride, fainting amid the fervour of her praise, exclaims: “He brought me to His banqueting-house, and His banner over me was love ;” I am so steeped in the delights of His Beauty, that “I am sick of love,” wounded with the shaft of desire to praise Him more and more. “I charge you, stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples !”3

The love of complacency attracts their sweetnesses into the soul until it well-nigh reels; but the love of benevolence calls forth from out the soul such an outpouring of praise, that it is constrained to call upon

* Ps, cxlviii.

3 *¢ Sus done d'une bouche animeée,

De l'Eternel, & quit mieux mieux;

Nostre void ensemble meslée,

Bien haut sur la vote estoilée

all creation to contribute the flowers of blessing, the fruits of thanksgiving and adoration, so that from all sides the sweet savour of worship may rise up to Him Who is above all honour and praise, Whom we can never worthily exalt.

It is this Divine passion of love which has led the Xaviers, the Antonys, the crowds of priests and religious who have gone forth into heathen lands, to India, to Japan, in order that the Holy Name of Jesus might be worshipped there. It is this Divine passion which has built so many noble churches, founded so many good works, written so many devout books, and caused so many holy servants of God to labour through life and till death amid the consuming flames of their exceeding zeal and devotion.

When the loving soul realises that it can never satisfy its craving after the praise of God amid this world’s infirmities, but that only in Heaven can that praise be perfected, it cries out in emulation of the blessed who stand before the Throne, and join in one never-ending, multiform, concentrated, Alleluia !—a voice, loud as of a great thunder and of many waters, yet soft as of harpers harping with their harps,’ crying out, Amen, Alleluia! A voice coming ‘out of the Throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great !” to which the voice of a great multitude answers, “Alleluia! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!”? And what is that lovely voice proceeding from the Throne, speaking Alleluias to the elect, save that most holy complacence, which, entering into the blessed, fills them with the sweetness of Divine Perfection, whence springs loving benevolence, the living fount of praise? Thus complacence teaches God’s wonders to those blessed ones, and benevolence moves them to pour out the incense of praise before the Throne. And therefore they sing eternal Alleluia! which is, Praise the Lord! Complacence comes from the Throne into the heart, and benevolence goes from the heart to the Throne.

Blessed indeed is that Temple where all is praise! Blessed they who live for ever amid that nightingale song of heavenly sweetness and praise!

So it is that the heart which can neither hear nor sing God’s praises as it fain would do here below, is irresistibly drawn from this life’s bondage to that other life where praise is perfected; and this longing sometimes grows so urgent in him who loves, that, overruling all other passions, it makes whatever is of this life wearisome, until the soul “faints and fails” for very love. And there have been cases where God has even permitted His. saints to die from the very excess of love. Thus the seraphic S. Francis, after long years of intense desire to praise God worthily, having been assured by special revelation of his eternal salvation, could not contain his joy, but was day by day consumed by it, as though his life and soul were melted like incense in the flame of his ardent longing to see and praise his God. And at the last his soul was parted from the body as it were by an outburst of yearning towards Heaven, for he died crying out the inspired words, “Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto Thy Name; which thing if Thou wilt grant me, then shall the righteous resort unto my company.”! Like a nightingale, shut up in the cage of his body, wherein he could not worthily sing the praises of his Eternal Love, longing to sing his perfected song in the blessed company of like minstrels, amid the fair beauty of the Land that is very far off; crying out, “O Lord of my life, of Thy

Grace set me free from this earthly prison, that I may take flight there where those I love await me to join in their chorus of gladness! There joining my song to theirs, I will for ever sing Thy most sweet praise !” Like the peroration of a great orator, the Saint summed up all his desires and longings in this last utterance; and so fervently did he breathe it, that while doing so he passed away. How blessed a death to die, dying of love!

Wie share in the Praise¹ rendered to Gov bp our Redeemer and His Wother. , T? US we go on from step to step in this holy act of worship, from the inanimate to the animate things of creation, from the Church militant to the Church triumphant, wherein from saints and angels we go on to the Blessed Virgin, who praises and magnifies the Lord more sweetly and perfectly than all besides.

Two years ago I was at Milan with some other clergy, attracted there by memories of the great Archbishop S. Charles Borromeo, and we heard beautiful music in many churches. But there was one monastery where we heard a nun’s voice so incomparably sweet, that it enchanted us more than all the rest put together, which seemed, however good, fit merely as a background to that exquisite music. Even so amid all human and angelic choirs we hear

‘Our Lady sing Magnificat” *

with a fuller note of praise than any other of God’s creatures. “Let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.”²

But even the praises of the “Mother of Fair Love”? and of all the rest of creation, however lovely and excellent, fall so infinitely short of what God’s Goodness deserves as to be utterly disproportionate thereto; so that although they are an expression of the urgent love of benevolence which the soul feels for its Beloved, they cannot satisfy it. Therefore it must needs go yet a step further, and call upon the Saviour to praise and glorify the Eternal Father with all the blessings of His Divine Sonship. And here indeed the mind is hushed in adoring stillness, and can no further go. The Son adoring the Father! He Who is “fairer than the children of men; Whose Lips are full of grace, because God has blessed Him for ever.” All praise is perfume, but He is “as ointment poured forth.”³ The Eterfial Father accepts the praise of all others as sweetness, but of His Son He says with Jacob, “See, the smell of My Son is as the smell of a field which I have blessed.”5 Yea, verily; all the praises which the Church militant or triumphant offer are but human or angelic—offered to the Creator, they yet come of the creature; but the praises of the Son are Divine, inasmuch as He is Very God—Divine in their source, Divine in their end, infinite, all perfect.

Were one who had listened to the chorus of songsters amid the woods, however sweet, suddenly to hear the full, rich melody of the nightingale, surely he would not hesitate to prefer that one song to all the rest combined; and so, from the various praises offered up by all creation to their God, we turn to the praise of the Son of God as far beyond all that heart of man could conceive, and are overwhelmed by the sweetness of its melody. “The Voice of my Beloved!” compared with which all other voices are as nought; “He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. He is like a roe or a young hart: He standeth behind our wall,” that is, our humanity; “He looketh forth at the windows, showing Himself through the lattice,” i.e. the wounds of His Hands and Feet and pierced Side.⁶ Yea, verily, Divine Love, sitting in the Saviour’s Heart as on a royal throne, looks through His wounded Side upon the hearts of the children of men, for He is the King of hearts, and beholds all hearts. But even as they who look through a lattice see while they themselves are scarce perceived, so the Divine Love of this Heart, or rather the Heart of this Divine Love, beholds ours plainly, while we but faintly perceive Him. And truly, did we see Him as He is, we should die of love for Him, even as He in His mortal life died for us, and would die yet, for very love, were He not Immortal.

Hearken to that Divine Heart singing its ineffable song of praise! What would not we do even to hear it? And He urges us in His Love: “Rise up, My love, My fair one, and come away !”⁷ Come to that land where all is joy and blessing and praise. “The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. . . . Arise, My love, My fair one, and come away.” And that thou mayest behold Me the better, look at Me through “the clefts of the rock,” the pierced Side, “the secret places of the stairs,” where the framework of My Body was rudely rent asunder on the Cross. “Let Me see thy countenance,”—now I see it without thy aid, then I shall see it of thine own will; “let Me hear thy voice,” let it blend with Mine, and so thy “voice shall be sweet and thy countenance comely.” Never, surely, was such sweetness to the heart of man as when our voices, united and blended with that of the Saviour, shall take part in the boundless harmony of praise offered by the Beloved Son to the Eternal Father.

The earthly acts of our Saviour are infinite in merit and worth, inasmuch as He Who performed them is One God with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But yet all are not of infinite nature or essence. Just as when in a room we do not receive light according to the vastness of the sun’s brightness, but according to the size of the window through which that light. penetrates; so the human actions of the Saviour are not infinite though of infinite worth, because though performed by a Divine Person, He did them not in the Infinite Greatness of His Divinity, but in the finite greatness of His Humanity. So that while the earthly actions of our Dear Lord are infinite as compared with ours, they are finite as compared with the Essential Infinitude of the Divinity. . They possess infinite value, worth, and dignity in that they proceed from One Who is God; but they are of finite essence and nature, because God does them in His finite and Human Nature and Substance. Thus the praise offered by our Saviour as Man is not absolutely infinite, and cannot wholly correspond to the Infinite Greatness of the Divinity to Whom it is offered. :

And therefore, after our first burst of admiration for such glorious praise as that rendered by the Son to the Father, we cannot fail to perceive that the Godhead is worthy of a yet higher praise than can be offered by a creation, or even by the Humanity of the Eternal Son. - a

If one should praise ‘the sun because of its brightness, the higher he rose towards it, the more praiseworthy it would seem as he grew more conscious of its splendour. If, as we suppose, it is the beauty of that light which moves the lark to sing, no wonder that the higher she rises the more powerful her song, until at last, fairly spent with song, she lowers both voice and flight. And so in proportion as we mount up towards God by the love of benevolence to hear and sing His praise, so do we realise how beyond all praise He is, until at length we discover that none save Himself Alone can worthily praise Him, Then indeed we cry out, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost!” And that it may be clear that thereby we do not offer the glory of mere earthly praise to God, but that eternal and essential glory which He possesses in, by, and of Himself, we add, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen ;” as though we said, “May God be ever glorified with that glory which He had before all creation in His Infinite Eternity and Eternal Infinity.” And therefore it is that we add this Doxology to all our Psalms and Canticles, according to the ancient usage of the Eastern Church, a usage which S. Jerome besought the Pope Damasus to establish in the West, in testimony that all human and angelic praise is too poor worthily to sing God's Goodness, which can only be thus worthily sung by means of His Own Glory and praise.

Great the joy and delight of the loving soul to find its cravings satisfied and its beloved setting forth His Own praise! But even thence springs a fresh need to praise and thank God for thus glorifying Himself, so that the circle of perpetual love and praise and glory is never-ending. .And whereas the loving soul began with a craving worthily to magnify the Lord, it ends by rejoicing in that boundless merit which can receive no worthy praise save in itself. And having attained this point, the rapt soul can only adore in silence, like the Seraphim of the Prophet,’ who veiled their faces and their feet in acknowledgment that they could neither contemplate nor serve God worthily, their feet being symbolical of service. Nevertheless they had wings wherewith to fly by the continual movement of complacence and benevolence, and their love finds rest in this sweet unrest.

Man’s heart is never so uneasy as when its continual enlargement and contraction is hindered, never so easy as when its action is free; so that one may say truly that its rest is in movement. And even so with the love of Seraphim and seraphic men, which finds rest in the continual movements of complacent love whereby it draws God into itself, and those of benevolence whereby it goes forth wholly to God. This love fain would behold the marvellous Goodness of God, but it folds the wings of that desire over its face, in confession that it cannot succeed. Fain, too, would it offer Him some worthy service, but again it covers the longing with wings, confessing itself powerless. And then nought remains to it save the two wings of complacence and benevolence, wherewith it takes flight, and finds its rest with God.