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Eighteenth Tuesday after Pentecost
Eighteenth Tuesday after Pentecost. What is Charity ?
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
Our preceding meditations have had for their object the emptying of our heart from all attachment to creatures ; it is time now to fill it with divine charity. This is why we will consider to morrow what charity is, and we shall see that it consists: 1st, in loving God for Himself; 2nd, in loving Him above all things ; 3rd, in loving Him with all our power. We will then make the resolution : 1st, as much as possible to multiply aspirations of love towards God, in order to ask of Him grace to love Him always more and more ; 3d, to perform all our actions from love. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Augustine : "O fire which burneth always, inflame me, that I may love thee with my whole heart !" (Conf., lib. x. ; Solil. 29.).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore God giving us the sweet precept of love : "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" (Deut. vi. 5 ; Mark xii. 30). Although the love with which He loves Himself suffices for His happiness, He desires also to be loved by His creatures. Although all the angels and all the saints burn with the most ardent love towards Him, it is not enough for His heart ; He wishes that earth should have a share in the happiness of heaven, and that we should love Him also. Not only does He permit this commerce of love between ourselves and Him, but He commands it, and He threatens us with His anger if we do not love Him. Let us, with St. Augustine, admire this ex cess of charity. For what am I to Thee, O my God, that Thou shouldst desire to enter into such intimate heart-to-heart relations with me, and that Thou art angry with me if I refuse to do so? (Conf., lib. ii.).
We ought to Love God for Himself.
God doubtless deserves that we should love Him infinitely, because of all that He has done for us since we are on earth, as well as for all the good things He destines us throughout eternity. But to love Him for this reason is not to accomplish the precept of charity ; it is to satisfy the law of gratitude. True charity makes abstraction of all self-interest, and, raising itself up to God, considered in Himself, it loves His infinite perfection, worthy of itself alone to ravish all hearts ; the supreme goodness, the incomparable beauty which can never be sufficiently loved, even though we had no recompense to expect from it. At the sole sight of these infinite amiabilities, the soul bursts forth into transports and cries out with the saints, "God alone, God alone, is everything io me" And there is nothing in heaven or upon earth that I desire if it be not Thee, O my God, Thou who art all good (Ex. xxxiii. 19) ; Thou who art beauty ever ancient and ever new ; Thou after whom I sigh (Ps. xli. 3), and the sight of whom will maintain me throughout eternity in a continual ecstasy of joy, of happiness, and of love (Ps. xvi. 15). In this happy state, we have at heart but one desire, the desire of pleasing God. We love Him, not only because He infinitely merits it, but because He wills it, because such is His good pleasure, and because His good pleasure is everything for the soul which loves. Let us examine whether we have thus loved God. Have we not loved Him only for the sake of what He has done for us, of the glory which He promises us, of the paradise which we expect ? Do we often make acts of pure love towards God, and have we deeply implanted in our hearts the sentiment of the love of God purely for Himself? "The reason for loving God," says St. Bernard, "is because He is God.".
We ought to Love God above all Things.
To love God above all things is to be ready to sacrifice everything and to lose everything rather than offend Him or displease Him ; it is to maintain our whole being and our whole existence at the disposition of His good pleasure ; it is to prefer the glory of being His, of serving Him and pleasing Him, to all the riches, to all the grandeurs, to all the pleasures of this world, and to be ready to separate from our parents or our friends ; to break with those to whom we cling the most ; to immolate our own satisfaction, our health, our life even, if it be necessary, rather than be wanting in what God asks of us. What can be more just than this frame of mind? "He who loves his father and mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me," Jesus Christ has said. God in His place before everything, God before riches, God before pleasure and well-being, God before the "what will they say" God before the whole of the universe. How little is this truth understood ! When the men of whom the gospel speaks are invited to the wedding, I have bought a farm, says one : I am obliged to go and see it (Luke xiv. 18). What is that compared with the enjoyment of God, of which this marriage is a symbol ? It is a nothing, and this nothing costs a thousand cares and a thousand anxieties. It does not signify ; for the sake of this nothing God is lost. I have bought five pair of oxen, says another : I must go and try them (Luke xiv. 19). The man, then, does not even know them, and yet he attaches himself to them. Oh, how we should be on our guard against attaching ourselves to the world, did we but know what are its miseries, its sor rows, and its infidelities ! I cannot accept the invitation, others say (Luke xiv. 20), and thus, some on one account, and some on another, lose heaven and lose God because they do not love Him above everything else. As for me, Lord, I will love Thee above all things. Take from me everything except Thy love ; I shall be content, and I will cheerfully lose all things for love of Thee. In leaving me Thy love, Thou leavest me all I desire. Thy love is everything to me, and without it everything is nothing to me. Even immortality is not dear to me except that through it I shall always enjoy Thy love. I would rather cease to be from this moment, than be one moment without Thy love. Let us sound our hearts. Are these really our dispositions ?
We ought to Love God with all our Power.
That is to say : 1st, with all our heart, in such a way that we love God only, nothing but. in God and for God ; 2nd, with all our mind, taking pleasure in thinking of Him and on the means whereby to please Him ; 3rd, with our whole soul, subjecting to Him all our passions, and using our senses, whether interior or exterior, only according to His good pleasure ; 4th, with our whole strength, sparing ourselves nothing when there is a question of accomplishing His will, and employing our whole strength in serving Him. Is it thus that we love God ? In our heart, what attachment to our own ease, to sensuality, to self-love, what affections and intentions which have no relation to God ! In our mind, what forgetfulness of God, what habitual dissipation ! Most frequently we speak and act as though God did not exist, solely occupied, as we are, in pleasing the creature, or finding pleasure in ourselves. In our soul, we allow free course to curiosity, to our imagination, to our passions, in regard to everything which does not actually bear the character of mortal sin. In the use of our senses and of our faculties, we expect to serve God without annoyance and with out subjecting them to Him. As soon as the cross presents itself, we draw back. As long as duty is in accordance with pleasure, we are faithful to it ; as soon as He asks a sacrifice of us, a violence to be done to ourselves, an effort over ourselves, we neglect it. Evidently, this is not to love God with all our strength. Let us exam ine ourselves, therefore, and see if we can flat ter ourselves that we love God with our whole power.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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