The nun sanctified by the virtues of her state
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THE TRUE PRAYER. My lady, if thou pray for me, I shall be saved; for thou dost obtain by thy prayers whatsoever thou wishest. Pray, then, for me, O great Mother of God: for thy Son hears thee, and grants whatever thou askest. It is true that I am unworthy of thy protection, but thou hast never abandoned a soul that had recourse to thee. O Mary, I consign my soul to thee; thou hast to save it. Obtain for me perseverance in the divine grace, and the love of thy Son and of thee. I love thee, O my queen, and I hope always to love thee. Do thou also love me; take me under thy protection, and have pity on me; grant me this favour through the love which thou bearest thy Son. Behold the confidence which I place in thy clemency, and do not cease to assist me in all my wants. I know that thou wilt not cease to help me as often as I recommend myself to thee; but obtain for me also the grace to have recourse to thee in all my temptations and in all my dangers of losing God. Assist me particularly at the hour of my death: obtain for me the grace that with my last breath I may pronounce thy yiame and the name of thy Son, saying: Jesus and Mary, o you I recommend my soul. Amen. CHAPTER XXII. ON THE LOVE OF JESUS. SECTION I. On the obligation of a Religious to love Jesus Christ. 1. The sole object of a religious in this life should be to love her most amiable spouse, Jesus Christ. The first and principal command which the Lord imposes on us is to love him with our whole heart. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart" — Deut. vi. 5. Because he loves us intensely, he wishes to be loved ardently by us. Hence, he so pressingly demands .our love, and calls for our heart: " My son, give me thy heart" — Prov. xxiii. 26. And what, says Moses, does the Lord demand of you, but that you love him with your whole heart ? " vv^hat doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou love him, and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart" — Deut. x. 12. To our love he promises himself as a reward. " I am thy reward exceeding great" — Gen. xv. 1. To their faithful subjects the monarchs of the earth give riches and honours; but to those who love him our God gives nothing less than himself. But though our love should receive no SPOITSK OF CHRIST. 409 other reward, for us it should be enough to know that God loves them who love him. He frequently declares in the Scriptures that he loves all who love him. " I love them that love me" — Prov. viii. 17. In another place he says: " He that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him" — 1 John iv. 16. And Jesus Christ has said: "He that loveth me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him" — John xiv. 24. 2. All our perfection, then, consists in the love of God; for, as St. Augustine says, love is the only virtue which unites us to God. "Uharitas est virtus conjungens nos Deo." All other virtues, without charity, profit us nothing; but charity brings with it all virtues: for, as the Apostle teaches (1 Cor. xiii. 4,) it is patient, it is kind, it is not puffed up, it is not ambitious of honours, it seeks not its own interest, but suffers all things, believes all things, and hopes for all things. Love, says the same Apostle, is the fulfilment of the law. " Plenitudo legis dilectio" — Mom. xiii. 10. Hence, St. Augustine said: "love, and do what you wish." He who loves another is careful not to give him the least displeasure, and studies to do everything in his power to please him. Hence, also, the soul that loves God abhors, as death, the smallest offence against his divine Majesty, and endeavours to the best of her ability to please him. 3. Let it be remembered that perfect charity consists in loving God for himself. To love God as the author of our felicity is the love of concupiscence, which, strictly speaking, belongs not to charity, but to hope; to love God because he deserves to be loved, because he is infinite goodness, is the love of friendship, or true charity. But it is necessary to observe, that hope is in no way opposed, nor any obstacle to perfect charity. In admitting a state of charity which excluded all hope, the Bishop of Cambray fell into an error which was condemned. We love God, because, on account of his perfections, he deserves to be loved, and we would love him though there were no reward for loving him; but, since he wishes to give us a reward, and even commands us to hope for it, we are bound to hope for it and to desire it. Besides, to desire paradise in order to possess God, and to love him better, is true and perfect charity; for eternal glory is the consummation of love. There the soul, entirely forgetful of herself and divested of all self-love, loves God with all her strength, and with t most pure love: it is thus that the saints in bliss happily lose themselves in God. 410 THE TRUE 4. If we knew that in an earthly kingdom there was a prince, beautiful, holy, and learned, kind and merciful, surely he would win our affection, though he had conferred no favour upon us. But what are the amiable qualities of such a prince compared with the perfections of God ? God possesses all perfections, and possesses them in an infinite degree. He has all the qualities which could render him amiable; he is infinite goodness, infinite beauty, infinite wisdom, and infinite mercy. Hence, his goodness, of itself, merits all our love. In the lives of the fathers of the desert it is related, that in the desert there were two monks who were brothers; to one of them the devil said that the other was doomed to perdition: the simple monk believed the fiend and was greatly afflicted. Being asked one day the cause of his affliction, he answered that it was revealed to him that his brother was doomed to hell. The brother humbly answered: "If such be the will of the Lord, may it be for ever blessed; but still I will love him to the utmost of my power in this life, for I love him neither through fear of hell, nor through the hope of heaven, but only because he deserves to be loved." On the following night an angel appeared to the deluded monk, and told him that his brother's name was written among the number of the elect. 5. We should, therefore, love God because he deserves to be loved on account of his infinite perfections. We should love him, at least through gratitude for the love which he has borne us. If the affection of all men, of all angels, and of all the saints, were united together, they would not equal the smallest part of the love which God bears to a single soul. St. John Chrysostom says that God loves us more than we love ourselves. I, says God himself to each of us, have loved you from eternity, and through pure love have drawn you out of nothing, and have placed you in this world. " I have loved thee with an everlasting love" — Jer. xxxi. 3. Our parents have been the first to love us in this world; but they have loved us only after they had known us; but God loved us before we had existence. Our fathers or mothers were not as yet born, and God loved us; the world was not as yet created, and God loved us: and for how long before the creation of the world did he love us ? Perhaps a thousand years, or a for God loved us as long as he has been God; he has loved us as long as he has loved himself. Hence, the holy virgin St. Agnes had reason to say: I am prevented by another lover. When the world and creatures sought her love she answered: No, I cannot love you; since my God has been thousand ages. It is useless STOUSE OF CHRIST. 411 the first to love me, it is but just that I consecrate my whole heart to him alone. 6. Our God, then, has loved us as long as he has been God; and through pure love has drawn us out of nothing; and among so many possible beings which he could, but never will create, he has chosen us, and has placed us in this world. For the love of us he has also created so many other beautiful creatures, the heavens, the hills, the seas, the fountains, and all other creatures that are on this earth. But he was not content with giving us these creatures: his love was not satisfied till he gave us himself. " He hath loved us, and delivered himself for us" — JEphes. v. 2. From the ruin caused by sin, he took occasion to show his love; accursed sin had robbed us of divine grace, had closed paradise against us, and made us slaves of hell. The Lord could redeem us from these evils in many ways; but he chose to come in person on earth, in order to become man. to redeem us from eternal death, and to obtain for us the divine friendship and heaven, which we had lost, exciting by such a prodigy of love the astonishment of heaven and creation. How great the wonder which an earthly monarch would excite, were he, through love for a slave, to become a slave, or for the sake of a worm, to become a worm? But our wonder should be infinitely greater at the sight of the Son of God, humbled, so as to become a man, for the love of man: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and in habit found as a man" — Phil. ii. 7; at the/ sight of a God clothed with flesh: " And the Word was made flesh" — John i. 7. But the wonder increases when we see all that this Son of God has done and suffered for the love of us miserable worms. To save us it was enough for him to have given a single drop of his blood, to have shed a tear, or to have offered a prayer; for a tear or prayer offered to the Eternal Father by a Man-God for our salvation would have been of infinite value, and therefore sufficient to save the world and an infinite number of worlds. But no; Jesus Christ wished not only to save us, but through the immense love which he bore us. he wished to gain all our love. Hence, to make us understand the extent of his love, he chose a life of pain and ignominy, and a death the most cruel and shameful of all deaths. "He humbled himself becoming obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross" — Phil. ii. 8. O God ! had our Saviour not been God, but an equal and a friend, what more could he do than give his life for us? "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" — John xv« What 412 THE TRUE do you say ? i>o you believe it ? Can you then think of loving any other object than Jesus Christ? A certain author says that before the incarnation of the Word, man might be able to doubt whether God loved him with a tender love; but after the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, how is it possible to doubt it ? How could he show ns greater tenderness of affection than by suffering so many torments, so many insults, and by dying on a cross ? Alas ! we have heard of the Incarnation of the Redeemer, of a God born in a stable, of a God scourged, of a God crowned with thorns, and dying on a cross. O holy faith, enlighten us, and make us understand the excess of love which made our God become man, and die for the love of us. But the desire which Jesus Christ had to suffer and die for us should be a subject of still greater astonishment. During his life our Saviour used to say: "I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized; and how am I straitened until it be accomplished" — Luke xii. 50. I am to be baptized with the baptism of my own blood, not to wash myself, but to cleanse men from their sins; and how am I straitened until my desire be accomplished. O God, Jesus Christ is not loved by men because they will not even think of the love which the amiable Redeemer has borne them. How is it possible for a soul that thinks on his love to live without loving him ? "The charity of Christ presseth us"— 2 Cor. v. 14. St. Paul says, that a soul that reflects on the love of Jesus Christ feels herself, as it were, constrained to love him. In meditating on the passion of the Saviour, the saints were inflamed with love, and sometimes broke out into exclamations of wonder and tenderness. "We have seen," exclaimed St. Laurence Justinian, "the author of wisdom become foolish through excess of love." We have seen a God as it were foolish through love for us. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi being one day wrapped up in an ecstasy, took an image of Jesus crucified into her hands, and cried aloud that he was foolish through love. " Yes, my Jesus," she continued to exclaim, " thou art foolish through love. I say, and I will always, O my Jesus, that thou art foolish through love." 9. Had not faith assured us of this great mystery of redemption, who could ever believe that the Creator of the universe should voluntarily suffer and die for his own creatures ? O God, if Jesus Christ had not died for us, who among men would dare to ask a God to become man and save us by his death ? Would it not have appeared folly even to think of it ? And in reality, when the gentiles heard the apostles preaching the death of Jesus Christ, they SPOUSE OF CHRIST. 413 regarded it as a fable, and as St. Paul attests, called it incredible folly. " We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the gentiles foolishness" — 1 Cor. i. 23. Yes, says St. Gregory, it appeared to them folly that the author of life should die for man. " Stultum visum esse, ut pro hominibus auctor vitas moreretur" — Horn. 6. How, said the gentiles, can we believe that a God who has no need of one, and is most happy in himself, should descend from heaven to earth, assume human flesh, and die for men, his miserable creatures ? This would be to believe that a God had become foolish for the love of men. But it is a truth of faith that Jesus the true Son of God, for the love of us, his miserable and ungrateful creatures, has abandoned himself to torments, to ignominies, and to death. " He hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us"— Eph. v. 2. 10. And why has he done so ? He has done it, says St. Augustine, that man might understand the immense love which God bears him. "Propterea Christus advenit ut cognosceret homo, quantum eum diligat Deus." And long before, Jesus himself said: "Ignem veni mittere in terram, et quid volo nisi ut accendatur" — Luc. xii. 49. I have, he says, come on earth to kindle the holy fire of divine love, and I only desire to see the hearts of men burning with its blessed flames. In contemplating Jesus in the garden, captured as a criminal by the soldiers, St. Bernard, turning to his Lord, exclaimed: "Qui tibi et vinculis." My Jesus, what hast thou to do with cords and chains? These belong to us slaves and sinners; but thou art the king of heaven, thou art holy. And what has reduced thee to the condition of a malefactor, the vilest and most wicked among men ? " Quis hoc fecit ? Amor dignitatis nescius: triumphat de Deo amor" — Serm. 84, in Cant. And what has effected all this ? Love, which is regardless of dignity when there is question of gaining the affection of the beloved. In a word, concludes the saint, God, whom no one can conquer, has been conquered by love. His love for man has made him take human flesh, and consume his divine life in a sea of sorrows and reproaches. Love triumphs over God. 11. In another place, the same St. Bernard contemplates our Redeemer condemned to death by Pilate; and asks of Jesus Christ: " Quid f ecisti innocentissime Salvator ut sic judicaveris?" Tell me, O my beloved Lord, who art innocence itself, what evil hast thou done to merit the barbarous sentence of condemnation to the death of the cross ? But, adds the saint, I understand the cause of 414 THE TRUE your death; the crime thou hast committed is thy love. "Peccatum tuum est amor tuus." Thy offence is the love thou hast borne to men; it is this and not Pilate that condemns thee to death, and makes thee die. But, O Lord, exclaimed holy Job, " what is the man that thou shouldst magnify him? or why dost thou set thy heart upon him?" —■Job vii. IV. My God, what is man whom thou hast so highly honoured? What benefit has he ever conferred upon thee that thy whole heart should, as it were, be occupied in seeking his welfare and in endeavoring to make known to him the affection thou dost bear him ? St. Thomas says that God loved man "as if man were his god; as if without him he could not be happy;" as if God could not be happy unless man were also happy. And, O blessed sister, had you been the god of Jesns Christ, what more could he have done for you than to spend so many years in pain and toils, and afterwards submit to a cruel death ? Had Jesus Christ to save the life of his own Father, what more could he have done than he has done for you ? But, O God, where is my gratitude ? Had one of your servants suffered what your spouse has endured for your salvation, could you ever forget his sufferings or live without loving him ? Ah ! at the thought of the death of Jesus Christ each of us should be, as it were, foolish through love for him, and should exclaim with St. Paschal: My love has been crucified for me: my love has died for me. 12. But what we have not as yet done we may now do. God gives us time to do it. Jesus has died for us, that by his love for us he might gain the entire dominion of our hearts. " To this end," says St. Paul, " Christ died that he might be the Lord both of the dead and of the living" — Horn. xiv. 9. He has died that we might live no longer to ourselves, but only to that God who has given his life for us. " Christ died for all," says the same Apostle, "that they also who live may not now live to themselves but unto him who died for them" — 2 Cor. v. 15. Contemplating the death of Jesus Christ, and the love with which he died for men, the saints esteemed it little to forfeit for his sake property, honours, and life. How many grandees, how many kings and queens, and empresses have renounced their kingdoms to shut themselves up in a cloister and live only for the love of Jesus Christ ? How many millions of martyrs have esteemed themselves happy to be able to sacrifice their lives for him amid the most horrible torments ? How many young and noble virgins, renouncing the nuptials of the first monarchs of the earth, have gone with joy to death, to make some return of love for the love of SPOUSE OF CHRIST. 415 God who had died for the love of them ? And do you> blessed sister, think that you have as yet done anything for the love of Jesus Christ ? What token have you as yet given of the love you bear him ? It is certain that as he has died for the saints, for St. Lucy, f 13. Consider also the special graces which he has bestowed on you, and which he has withheld from so many of your companions, who had as good a claim to them as you had. How many noble ladies, how many princesses, have been born among infidels and heretics, and live miserably in the state of perdition, bereft of the sacraments, of sermons, and of the other helps necessary for salvation ? And to you he has given the grace to be born in the bosom of the true Church. He has also given wealth to your parents that you might have more opportunities and means of acquiring eternal salvation. He has also chosen you for his spouse from among so many of your companions, whom he has left in the midst of the dangers of the world. From these dangers he has rescued you (and perhaps against your inclination,) and has brought you into his own house, where he assists you continually by his lights and interior calls; by the sacraments, by sermons, by the example of your good sisters, and by so many other helps to salvation. Consider also the many mercies he has show you in pardoning so many offences which you have committed in the world and in religion. It was enough for him that you repented and asked forgiveness: he instantly pardoned you. You ungratefully offended him again, and he, with the same love, pardoned you; and instead of inflicting chastisements on your multiplied offences, he has multiplied graces, lights, calls, and consolations. And, behold, at this moment, while you read this book, he continues to call you to his love. What are your thoughts ? What resolutions do you make ? What do you wait for ? Perhaps you intend to wait till the Lord calls you no more, and abandons you. PRAYER. My dear Redeemer, I see that thou hast placed me under too many obligations to love thee. My soul has cost thee too high a price. I should be ungrateful if I loved anything but thee, or if I loved but little a God who has given his blood and his life for me. If thou, O my Jesus and my spouse, hast died for me, your juiserable servant, it is but just that I die for thee, my Lord and my God. I renounce the love of ah creatures, and consecrate my heart to the iove of thee aione. I choose thee for my only good, my 416 THE TRUE only love. I love thee; O my love, I love thee. I repeat, and wish always to repeat, I love thee, O my love; I love thee. Thou dost wish that I love thee ardently, and that I love nothing but thee. My Saviour, I wish to content thee; I wish to love thee ardently; I wish for thee alone. Yes; to love thee alone, my God, my treasure, my all. Assist me for the sake of thy mercy, and grant that I may fully satisfy thee. O Mary, my mother, do thou too assist me; thou art the dispenser of all the gifts of God, and particularly of the great gift of divine love. This gift I ask thee to obtain for me. Through thee I hope for it. SECTION II. On the means of acquiring divine love, and on the acts of love which a religious should practice towards Jesus Christ. 1. The Lord commands all men to love him, and to love him with their whole hearts: "Diliges Dominum tuum ex toto corde tuo." But he wishes in a special manner that religious, his chosen spouses, love him with all their affections. Hence, he has favoured them with so many lights and spiritual graces that they may seek to love nothing but this most loving spouse. St. Teresa used to say that God bestows a great favour on the souls he calls to his love. You, O blessed sister, are one of these fortunate souls; but to consecrate yourself entirely to the love of your spouse, as he desires, you must resolutely adopt the means. 2. The first means is to desire ardently to attain that perfect love which will make your heart entirely belong to him. Ardent desires are the wings with which the saints flew to unite themselves with God by perfect love. If you have not this desire, at least ask it of God; for without it you will never be able to arrive at any degree of holiness, but with the aid of such desires you will soon attain sanctity. St. Teresa has left her spiritual children many excellent lessons on this subject. In one place she says: "Let our thoughts be great: from great thoughts our good shall come." In another place she writes: "We must not debase our desires, but must trust in God; for by continual efforts we shall, with the divine aid, gradually arrive at the perfection which the saints have attained." She attests that she had never seen a cowardly soul make as much progress in many years as generous souls make in a few days. Hence, she said: "The Lord is as much pleased with our desires, as if they were already executed." SX. Gregory says that he who pants after God with his whole heart finds SPOUSE. OF CHRIST. 417 him: but to wish for God with the whole heart, the soul must be stripped and emptied of worldly affections. This is the second means. 3. The second means necessary to love God with the whole heart, is detachment from all love which is not for God. He wishes to have the exclusive possession of our whole heart: he will admit no companion. St. Augustine relates (lib. 1, de cons. etc. cap. 22,) that the Roman Senate, after adoring thirty thousand gods, refused to adore the God of the Christians, saying that he was a proud God who wished to be worshipped alone without companions. But this our Lord justly claims; for he is the only and the true God; and our only true lover, who, because he loves us tenderly, wishes that we love him with our whole hearts. To love God with the whole heart implies two things: it implies first the expulsion from the heart of every affection which is not for God. The enamoured St. Francis de Sales said: "If I knew that there was a single fibre in my heart which was not for God, I would instantly pluck it out." If the heart is not emptied of earthly affections, the love of God cannot enter. But in a heart detached from creatures, the fire of divine love burns and always increases. St. Teresa used to say: "Detach the heart from creatures; seek God and you shall find him." "The Lord is good . . . to the soul that seeketh him" — Lam. iii. 25. He gives himself entirely to them who leave all things for his sake, as he once said to St. Teresa: "Now that you are all mine, I am all yours." He says the same to you, if you divest yourself of all things in order to belong entirely to him. Father Segneri, the younger, wrote to a spiritual soul: " Divine love is a thief that robs the soul of all her affections, so that she can say : What else do I wish for than thee alone, O my Lord?" And St. Francis de Sales has said: "The pure love of God consumes all that is not God, in order to convert everything into itself; for all that is done for the love of God is love." In the life of the venerable Joseph Caraccioli, of the order of Theatines, we read that after the death of a brother, being in company with his relatives, he said: "Ah! let us reserve our tears for a better occasion; to weep over the death of Jesus Christ, who has been to us a father, a brother, and a spouse, and has died for the love of us." Every religious should reserve all her tenderness and compassion for Jesus, her spouse. |