VI — INFINITE GOODNESS DIFFUSES ITSELF

Presence of God. — O infinite Goodness, who unceasingly communicate Yourself to your creatures, teach me to imitate You.

Meditation

1 — Good does not shut itself up in itself; its characteristic is to diffuse itself, that is, to communicate itself to others, “bonum diffusivum sui.” The more good is truly good, the more it tends to diffuse itself. God is the supreme Good; therefore He is the good most diffusive of itself. God pours Himself out first of all in Himself, in the bosom of the Most Holy Trinity: the Father communicates to the Son all his divinity, essence, life, goodness, divine beatitude; the Father and the Son together communicate it to the Holy Spirit. Precisely in this essential, total, unceasing, absolute communication consists God’s intimate life, consists the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Here we have the supreme realization of the axiom: “bonum diffusivum sui.”

But infinite Goodness also wills to diffuse itself outside itself, and so God calls into existence an immense number of beings to whom He communicates, in different mode and degree, something of his goodness. God does not create creatures because He needs them, for they can add nothing to his essential beatitude and glory, but creates them solely to expand outside Himself his infinite goodness. God does not will creatures because in them there is some good, some lovableness, but, creating them, He imparts to them his good and makes them lovable. God communicates Himself to creatures solely because He is good and delights in communicating his good to other beings. God’s goodness is so great that it can communicate itself to an infinite number of creatures without ever exhausting itself. God’s goodness is so diffusive that it makes good all that it touches, makes good all his creatures. This goodness is the reason for your being and your life. Creating you, it impressed its mark in you and still surrounds and penetrates you without ceasing. Examine your heart and see whether it preserves the imprint of divine goodness; examine your thoughts, your sentiments, your actions, and see whether in them shines the reflection of infinite goodness.

2 — God’s goodness is so gratuitous that it communicates itself to creatures without their merit. It is so liberal that it always goes before them and does not cease pouring out upon them its lights, even when, abusing their freedom, they prove unworthy of them. God’s goodness is so long-suffering that it does not stop before ingratitudes, resistances, and even offenses of his creatures, but always pursues them with its graces. God would have every right to answer men’s sins by taking from them life and all the goods He granted them, but his infinite goodness prefers to answer with new gifts, with new proofs of benevolence, and says: “I do not will the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ez. 33:11).

Now consider your own goodness and see how, compared with God’s, it is petty, narrow, calculating, interested. How many times do you also act like those pagans of whom the Gospel speaks, who love only those who love them (cf. Mt. 5:46). You are good with those good to you, you render services to those who repay you; but often you are hard and miserly with your gifts toward those from whom you can expect no recompense. Does it not happen that you are sweet and benevolent with one who approves you and shares your ideas, and instead harsh and little benign with one opposed to you? Before coldness, ingratitudes, offenses, and at times even before small lack of consideration, your goodness stops, withdraws, shuts itself in itself, and you are no longer capable of being benevolent toward your neighbor. See, then, how your goodness is infinitely unlike God’s. See how much you need to meditate Jesus’ words that invite you to imitate the heavenly Father’s goodness: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on good and bad and sends rain on just and unjust” (Mt. 5:44-45).

Colloquy

“O eternal Father! O fire and abyss of charity! O eternal clemency, O hope, O refuge of sinners! O eternal infinite good! And do You have need of your creature? Yes, it seems to me, for You act as though without her You could not live, You who are the life from which every thing has life and without whom no thing lives. Why then do You act so? Because You fell in love with your workmanship and delighted in it, as one inebriated with its salvation. It flees from You and You go seeking it; it distances itself and You draw near. Nearer You could not come than by clothing Yourself in its humanity. And what shall I say? I will do as Jeremiah and say: ‘Ah, ah!’ for I do not know what else to say, because finite tongue cannot express the soul’s affection that infinitely desires You. It seems to me I can repeat Paul’s word when he said: ‘Neither tongue can tell, nor ear hear, nor eye see, nor heart conceive what I saw.’ What did you see? ‘Vidi arcana Dei,’ I saw the ineffable mysteries of God. And what do I say? I add nothing with my coarse feelings, but only I tell you, my soul, that you have tasted, seen the abyss of supreme eternal providence. Now I give thanks to You, supreme eternal Father, for your immeasurable goodness shown to me miserable one, unworthy of every grace.

“And shall I be that miserable one who can render thanks for the inflamed charity that You show to me and to all your creatures? No! But only You, sweetest and loving Father, will be grateful and thankful for me, that is, the affection of your own charity will give You thanks, because I am she who is not. And if I said I am anything by myself, I would lie, for You alone are He who is. And being and every grace I have received from You who gave it to me and continually give it for love and not by debt.

“O infinite goodness, O inestimable love, admirable are the things You have worked in your rational creature!” (St. Catherine of Siena).