Love of God
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.”—Matthew 22:37
“But one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). And what is this one thing necessary? It is not necessary to acquire riches, nor to obtain dignities, nor to gain a great name. The one thing necessary is to love God. Whatever is not done for the love of God is lost. This is the greatest and the first commandment of the divine law. To the Pharisee who asked which is the greatest commandment of the law, Jesus Christ answered: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart … This is the greatest and first commandment” (Matt. 22:37, 38).
But this, which is the greatest of the commandments, is the most despised by men, and few are those who keep it. The greater part love their relatives, their friends, and even the brute animals, but they do not love God. Of these St. John says that they have no life, but abide in death: “He that loveth not, abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). For St. Bernard writes that the worth of a soul is measured by the measure of her love for God. Quantitas animae aestimatur de mensura charitatis quam habet—“The measure of a soul is estimated by the measure of charity which it has” (Sermon 27 on the Canticles). Let us consider today, in the first point, how dear this command of loving God with our whole heart ought to be to us; and, in the second, what we ought to do in order to love God with our whole heart.
First Point.—How dear this command of loving God with our whole heart ought to be to us.
1. What object more noble, more great, more powerful, more rich, more beautiful, more good, more merciful, more grateful, more lovable, or more loving than himself could God give us to love? Who is more noble than God? Some boast of a nobility in their family of five hundred or a thousand years; but the nobility of God is an eternal nobility. He is the Lord of all. Before God, what are all the angels of heaven and all the great ones of the earth but a drop from a bucket and a little dust? “Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket … as a little dust” (Isa. 40:15). Who is more powerful than God? God can do whatever he wills: by a single act of his will he has created the world, and by another act he can destroy it whenever he pleases.
Who is more rich? He possesses all the riches of heaven and earth. Who is more beautiful? Before the beauty of God all the beauties of creatures vanish. Who is more good? St. Augustine says that God has a greater desire to do us good than we have to receive it. Who is more merciful? Let the most impious sinner there is but humble himself before God and repent of his sins, and God at once pardons and embraces him. Who is more grateful than God? He does not leave unrewarded the least thing we do for love of him. Who is more lovable? God is so lovable that the saints, merely by seeing and loving him in heaven, enjoy such a gladness as makes them fully blessed and content for all eternity. This is the greatest pain of the damned: to know that this God is so lovable, and to be unable to love him.
2. Finally, who is more loving than God? Under the old law a man might doubt whether God loved him with a tender love; but after we have seen him die upon a cross for us, how can we still doubt that he loves us with all tenderness and affection? Let us raise our eyes and look upon Jesus, the true Son of God, who hangs nailed to that gibbet, and let us consider to what a point the love he bears us has come. That cross, those wounds, says St. Bernard, cry aloud and make known to us that he truly loves us. Clamat crux, clamat vulnus, quod ipse vere dilexit—“The cross cries out, the wound cries out, that he truly loved.” And what more could he have done to make us understand his great love than to lead a life of affliction for thirty-three years, and then die of grief upon the infamous wood of the cross to wash away our sins with his own blood?
“Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). “Who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. 1:5). “How,” said St. Philip Neri, “is it possible for one who believes in God to love anything other than God?” St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, considering the love that God bears to men, began one day to ring the bell, saying that she wished to call all the peoples of the earth to love this God who is so loving. And this made St. Francis de Sales weep, as he said: “To love our God we would need to have an infinite love; and instead we throw our love away on vain and worthless things!”
3. Oh, the great worth of love, which makes us rich in God! This is the treasure by which we gain his friendship: “He is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God” (Wis. 7:14). One thing alone, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, ought we to fear—to be deprived of the friendship of God; and one thing alone ought we to desire—to gain the friendship of God (Life of Moses). Unum terribile, arbitror, ab amicitia Dei repelli: unum solum expetibile, amicitia Dei—“One thing is terrible, I think: to be repelled from the friendship of God; one thing alone is to be desired: the friendship of God.” And it is love that obtains for us this friendship of God. Hence St. Lawrence Justinian afterward wrote that by love the poor man becomes rich, and without love the rich man is poor. “No greater riches than to have charity. In charity the poor man is rich, and without charity the rich man is poor” (St. Lawrence Justinian, on Matt. 13:44).
How great is the gladness a man feels in knowing that he is loved by some great lord! But how much greater the consolation he ought to feel in knowing that he is loved by God! “I love them that love me” (Prov. 8:17). In a soul that loves God the whole Blessed Trinity dwells. “If any one love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him; and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23). St. Bernard writes that among all the virtues, charity is the one that unites us to God. Charitas est virtus conjungens nos Deo—“Charity is the virtue joining us to God.” Love is a golden chain, St. Catherine of Bologna used to say, that binds the soul to God. And St. Augustine had said this before: “Love is a joint that couples the lover with the beloved.”
Hence, were God not immense, where should he be found? Find a soul that loves God, and there God is certainly found. Of this St. John assures us: “He that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). A poor man may love riches, but he does not therefore possess them; he may love to be a king, but he does not therefore possess a kingdom. But the man who loves God possesses God: “He abideth in God, and God in him.”
4. Moreover, St. Thomas says that love draws in its train all the other virtues, and directs them all to unite us more closely with God (Treatise on Virtue, art. 3). Hence St. Lawrence Justinian called charity the mother of virtues, since from her all the virtues are born. For this reason St. Augustine said: “Love, and do what you will.” He who loves God can only do good; if he does evil, it is a sign that he has ceased to love him. And when he ceases to love him, nothing avails him, according to what the Apostle wrote: If I give to the poor all that I have, and give my body to the fire, but have not charity, it profits me nothing. “And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3).
5. Moreover, love makes us not feel the pains of this life. St. Bonaventure says that the love of God is like honey, which makes the bitterest things sweet. And what is sweeter to a soul that loves God than to suffer for God, knowing that by embracing sufferings willingly we give pleasure to God, and that they shall one day become the brightest jewels of our crown in paradise? And who would not gladly suffer and die, following Jesus, who goes before us with the cross to sacrifice himself for love of us, and invites us to come after him with these words: “If any man will come after me … let him take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24)? To this end he willed to humble himself even to death, and to the shameful death of the cross, for love of us. “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8).
Second Point.—What we ought to do in order to love God with our whole heart.
6. It is too great a favor, St. Teresa used to say, the favor that God grants to a soul when he calls her to his love. Since, then, most beloved brethren, God calls us all to love him, let us thank him and love him with our whole heart. Because he loves us greatly, he wills to be greatly loved by us. “When God loves,” wrote St. Bernard, “he desires nothing else than to be loved; for he loves only that he may be loved” (Sermon 63 on the Canticles). To this end the Eternal Word came down to earth, to inflame us with his divine love, as he himself declared; and he added that he desires nothing else than to see this divine fire kindled in us. “I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). Let us now see what we ought to do, and the means we ought to take, in order to love God.
7. In the first place, we ought to guard ourselves against every sin, whether grave or slight. “If any one love me,” says the Lord, “he will keep my word” (John 14:23). This is the first mark of love: to take care to give the least displeasure to the beloved. How can he be said to love God with his whole heart who does not fear to give God deliberate displeasures, however slight? St. Teresa used to say: “From deliberate sin, however small, may God deliver you.” But someone will say: A venial sin is a small evil. A small evil, to displease a God so good, and who loves us so much?
8. In the second place, to love God with the whole heart, we must have a great desire to love him. Holy desires are the wings that make us fly to God; for, as St. Lawrence Justinian says, a good desire gives us strength to go forward and makes lighter the labor of the journey along the way of God. Vires subministrat, poenam exhibet leviorem—“It supplies strength, it makes the toil lighter.” And on this way, as all the masters of the spiritual life teach, he who does not advance goes backward. But God readily gives himself to one who seeks him: “The Lord is good … to the soul that seeketh him” (Lam. 3:25). He fills with his good things the one who desires him out of love: “He hath filled the hungry with good things” (Luke 1:53).
9. In the third place, there must be a resolution of soul to attain the perfect love of God. Some desire to be wholly God’s, but do not resolve to take the means; these are they of whom the Wise Man speaks: “Desires kill the slothful” (Prov. 21:25). I would wish to become a saint, they say, I would wish to leave all for God; and meanwhile they never take a single step forward. St. Teresa used to say: “Of these irresolute souls the devil is not afraid.” For if they do not truly resolve to give themselves wholly to God, they will always remain the same imperfect souls that they are.
On the other hand, the saint said that God wishes nothing of us but a true resolution to become saints, and that he himself will then do all the rest on his part. If, then, we wish to love God with our whole heart, we must resolve to do without reserve what is most pleasing to God, and to begin at once to put our hand to the work. “Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly” (Eccles. 9:10). What you can do today, do not wait for tomorrow; do it as soon as you can. A certain nun in the convent of Tor de’ Specchi in Rome, named Sister Bonaventura, formerly led a tepid life; but one day, while making the spiritual exercises, she was called by God to his perfect love, and she resolved to correspond at once to the divine voice. And so she said to her director, with true resolution: “Father, I wish to become a saint, and to become one quickly.” And so she did; for God, helping her with his grace, granted that from then on she lived a saint and died a saint. We must, then, resolve, and at once take the means of becoming saints.
10. The first means must be to detach ourselves from all that is created, and to drive from the heart every affection that is not for God. The ancient fathers of the desert, when anyone came to be admitted into their company, first of all asked him: “Do you bring an empty heart, that the Holy Ghost may be able to fill it?” If the world is not taken out of the heart, God cannot enter it. St. Teresa used to say: “Detach the heart from creatures, and seek God, and you shall find him.” St. Augustine writes that the Romans worshipped thirty thousand gods, but the Roman senate refused to admit Jesus Christ among these gods, saying that he is a proud God who wills to be adored alone. And they had reason to say so; for our God wills to possess our whole heart, and is therefore jealous of it, as St. Jerome says: Zelotypus est Jesus—“Jesus is jealous.” And therefore, in being loved, he will have no rivals.
Hence the soul, the spouse in the sacred Canticles, is called an enclosed garden: “My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed” (Cant. 4:12). The soul, then, that wishes to be wholly God’s must be closed to every other love that is not toward God.
11. And so the divine Spouse is said to be wounded by one of the eyes of his spouse: “Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes” (Cant. 4:9). That one eye signifies the one end the soul that is his spouse has in all her actions and thoughts—to please God alone; unlike worldlings, who, even in their devout exercises, sometimes have various ends: of their own interest, or of pleasing men, or of pleasing themselves. But the saints look to nothing but the sole pleasure of God, and turning to him they say: “What have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth? … Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever” (Ps. 73:25, 26).
And so we too must do, if we wish to become saints. If we do something that pleases God, says St. Chrysostom, what else do we go seeking? Si dignus fueris agere aliquid quod Deo placet, aliam praeter id mercedem requiris?—“If you are worthy to do something that pleases God, do you seek any other reward besides that?” (On Compunction of Heart, Bk. 2). What greater reward can a creature obtain than to give pleasure to its Creator? Hence, in all that we desire or do, we ought to seek nothing but God. A certain solitary named Zeno, walking through the desert absorbed in God, met the Emperor Macedonius, who was going to the hunt. The emperor asked him what he was doing; and he answered: You go in search of animals, and I go in search of God alone. St. Francis de Sales used to say: “The pure love of God consumes all that is not God.”
12. Moreover, to love God with our whole heart, we must love him without reserve. And so we must love him with a love of preference, preferring him before every other good, with the resolution to lose a thousand lives rather than the grace of God, saying with St. Paul: “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers … nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:38, 39).
We must also love him with a love of benevolence, desiring to see him loved by all; and therefore he who loves God must seek, as far as he can, to kindle in others also the love of him, or at least pray the Lord for the conversion of all who do not love him. We must love him, moreover, with a love of sorrow, grieving over every displeasure given to God more than over every evil we could have suffered. We must love him, moreover, with a love of conformity to the divine will. This is the chief office of love: to unite the will of those who love, saying to God: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Lord, tell me what you would have of me, for I wish to do it all: I wish nothing; I wish only what you will. Therefore let us often offer ourselves to God without reserve, that he may do with us, and with what is ours, whatever he pleases.
We must love him, moreover, with a love of patience. This is that strong love by which the true lovers of God are known. “Love is strong as death” (Cant. 8:6). St. Augustine wrote: “Nothing is so hard that it cannot be conquered by the fire of love” (On the Morals of the Catholic Church, ch. 22). For, says the saint, no labor is felt in doing what we love, and if it is felt, the labor itself is loved. In eo quod amatur, aut non laboratur, aut labor amatur—“In that which is loved, either there is no labor, or the labor itself is loved.” St. Vincent de Paul used to say that love is measured by the desire the soul has to suffer and to be humbled in order to please God. Let God be pleased, and let us die for it. Let all be lost, rather than give displeasure to God. We must leave all in order to gain all. All for all, wrote Thomas à Kempis.
And this is the reason why we do not become saints: because, as St. Teresa said, we never come to give God our whole affection, and so neither is his whole love given to us. We must, then, say with the sacred spouse: “My beloved to me, and I to him” (Cant. 2:16). My beloved has given himself wholly to me; it is just that I give myself wholly to him. St. John Chrysostom says that when a soul has come to give herself wholly to God, she cares no more for disgrace or for sufferings, and loses the desire for all things; and finding no rest in any creature, she goes ever in search of her beloved, and her whole study is to find her beloved.
13. To obtain and to preserve divine love in ourselves, three things are necessary: meditation, communion, and prayer. First, meditation: he who thinks little of God loves him little. “In my meditation a fire shall flame out” (Ps. 39:3). Meditation is that blessed furnace in which the love of God is kindled and grows—and especially meditation on the passion of Jesus Christ. “He brought me into the wine cellar; he set in order charity in me” (Cant. 2:4). The souls that are brought into this heavenly cellar, by a single glance at Jesus Christ crucified, dying for love of us, are left wounded and inebriated with holy love.
For St. Paul says that to this end Jesus Christ willed to die for us all, that each one might live only to love Jesus Christ. “And Christ died for all, that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them” (2 Cor. 5:15). Communion is the other blessed furnace in which we are inflamed with divine love. “The eucharist is a coal,” writes St. Chrysostom, “that inflames us, so that, like lions breathing fire, we may come away from that table having become terrible to the devil” (Hom. 61 to the People). Above all, prayer is necessary, by means of which God dispenses all his gifts, and especially this supreme gift of his love; and to ask this love, meditation is a great help, for otherwise we shall ask little or nothing of God.
We must, then, always, every day, and several times in the day, ask God to give us the grace to love him with our whole heart. St. Gregory wrote that God wills to be constrained and importuned by our prayers to grant us his graces. “God wishes to be entreated, wishes to be constrained; he wishes in a certain manner to be overcome by importunity.” Let us, then, ask Jesus continually for his holy love; and let us ask it also of his divine Mother Mary; for she is the treasurer of all graces—Thesauraria gratiarum, “Treasurer of graces,” as she is called by the Idiota—and the dispenser of graces, as St. Bernardine says—“All graces are dispensed through her hands”—and it is by her hand that we are to receive this supreme gift of divine love.
Points for Reflection
1. “From deliberate sin, however small, may God deliver you” (§7)
2. “What you can do today, do not wait for tomorrow; do it as soon as you can” (§9)
3. “We must, then, always, every day, and several times in the day, ask God to give us the grace to love him with our whole heart” (§13)