44 — LABORIOUS AND STRONG LOVE

Presence of God. — O Lord, grant that my love for You may not be content with words, but show itself in generous works.

Meditation

1 — “Love is never idle” (T.G. M. V, 4, 10); when the true love of God enters a soul, little by little it generates in it an interior dynamism so strong and pressing, that spurs it to seek always new means to please the Beloved, that renders it industrious to devise new manners to give Him proof of fidelity. Love, in fact, does not nourish itself on sweet sentiments or on fancies, but on works. “Love — says St. Teresa of Jesus — can be compared to a great fire that must be continually fed to prevent it from going out. Thus these souls [the souls in whom God Himself goes kindling the flame of charity], in order to find fuel and prevent it from going out, are ready to throw on it the wood of the greater sacrifices” (W. 30, 20). Whoever loves truly does not stand to examine if a thing is easy or difficult, pleasant or disagreeable, but puts hand to everything to feed its love; indeed, of preference goes choosing works of greater sacrifice because it understands that love is never so true as when it spurs to sacrifice itself for Him whom one loves. In this way it comes to pass that love “produces in the soul an ordinary suffering for the sake of the Beloved, without ever tiring. Since, as St. Augustine says, love renders easy and as nothing even the greatest and most grievous things... In... [this state] the spirit has so much strength that it holds the flesh subject, and makes so little account of it, as a tree would not make of one of its leaves; and in no way seeks comfort and pleasure, neither in God nor in any other thing” (G.C. N. II, 19, 4).

This explains the attitude of the saints who, not only embraced with good will all the sufferings that God placed on their way, but themselves went in search of them with jealous care, as the miser goes in search of gold. To the Lord who asked him what he wished in recompense for the great services he had rendered Him, St. John of the Cross, ardent with love, responded: “To suffer and to be despised for love of You.” And St. Teresa of Jesus, seeing her earthly exile prolonged, found in suffering embraced for God the sole manner of quieting her heart thirsting for eternal love and supplicated: “Lord, I ask of You but one thing: either to die or to suffer” (W. 40, 20).

In heaven we shall not have need to suffer to testify to God our love, because then we shall love in the indeficient clarity of the beatific vision. But down here, where we love in the obscurity of faith, we have need of suffering to prove to God the reality of our love.

2 — “Love, when it is perfect, has the force to make us forget every our satisfaction to please the Beloved,” has the force to make us accept “with the same gladness both the sweet and the bitter, when in this is His will” (T.G. Fd. 5, 10). Evidently, a similar love cannot be fruit of our humanity to which suffering so repugns, cannot be fruit of a our conquest for that which greatly surpasses the capacities of our nature so weak and vile. A similar love God alone infuses little by little in the souls that let themselves be guided by Him through the narrow way of interior purification. Yes, in aridity, in the solitude of heart, in the privation of every light and comfort, the Holy Spirit kindles in them the flame of charity, flame that so much the more invades them as much as It finds them disposed and that is purified from every thing contrary to love. When all resistances are vanquished, all dross eliminated, love blazes incontentible and confers on the soul a force as of a giant; the flame of love — explains St. John of the Cross — “makes [the soul] go out of itself and all renews it and makes it pass to a new manner of being” (C. 1, 17). Manner so new that, whereas before it feared and fled suffering, now it loves and embraces it with fortitude.

The soul stronger in suffering is the soul stronger in love. No creature in the world loved or will love God more than Mary most holy and no creature was or will be more strong than she in suffering. Behold her at the foot of the Cross: she is mother and assists voluntarily at the atrocious supplication of the Son; she sees the nails sink into the flesh, hears the dull blows of the hammer, sees the head crowned with thorns seek in vain a bit of rest on the hard wood, sees the cross raised and the Son hang suspended between earth and heaven, disfigured by pain, without the minimum comfort. Mary has her heart pierced, yet repeats her fiat with the same fullness with which she pronounced it at the announcement so joyous of her maternity, and in love finds the courage to offer the beloved Son for the salvation of His executioners. What mother could emulate the fortitude of the Madonna? Yet her sacrifice immensely surpasses the sacrifice of any mother, because she alone can say: the Son whom I immolate is my God.

At the foot of the Cross, near to Mary, whom love and sorrow rendered Queen of martyrs, let us learn the secret of strong love.

Colloquy

“Who truly loves You, O Lord, has but a sole care, to content You. He dies from the desire to be loved by You again and consumes his life in the longing to be able to love You more. And can such love keep itself hidden? No, my God, it is impossible! Certainly, love has its degrees and manifests itself more or less according to its portée. If it is small, it manifests itself little and if it is great much. But, whether small or great, when it is true love, it always makes itself known.

“O Lord, grant that my love be not fruit of imagination, but be proved by works. And what can I do for You, who died for us, who created us and conserve us in being, if not to hold myself happy to be able to repay You, at least in part, the much that I owe You?

“Ah, grant, O Lord, that for me too there may finally dawn the day when I may somewhat satisfy the much of which I am debtor to You! Cost what it may, O Lord, but permit no more that I come before You with empty hands, given that the prize will be in proportion to the works. I know the little that I am worth, but united to You I shall be capable of all things.

“Ah, my Lord, if whoever loves You does not do great things, it is certainly not for You, but solely for our pusillanimity and cowardice that impedes us from resolving ourselves for truly, full of fears and human prudence, as we always are. For this, O my God, You do not display Your greatnesses and marvels. Who more than You is friend of giving, finding who wishes to receive? Who more largely than You recompenses the services that are rendered You? May it please Your Majesty that someone may have rendered them to You also by me, without finding myself more debtor for the much that You have conceded to me!” (T.G. Cam. 40, 3; M. III, 1, 7 and 8; W. 21, 5; Fd. 2, 7).