Divine love conquers all things

The soul cannot exist without loving the Creator or creatures. Given a soul that is weaned of every other love, you will find it filled with Divine love. Do we wish to know whether we have given ourselves wholly to God? Let us examine ourselves whether we are weaned from every thing or not.

I. Love is strong as death (Cant. viii. 6). As death separates us from all the goods of the world, from riches, honours, kindred, friends, and all earthly pleasures, so does the love of God, when it reigns in a heart, strip it of all affection for these perishable advantages. Therefore it was that the Saints stripped themselves of everything the world offered them, renounced their possessions, their posts of honour, and all they had, and fled to deserts or cloisters, to think upon and to love God alone.

Do we wish to know whether we have given ourselves wholly to God? Let us examine ourselves whether we are weaned from every earthly thing or not.

Some persons lament that in their devotions, prayers, Communions, Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, they do not find God. To such St. Teresa says: "Detach thy heart from creatures, and then seek God, and thou shalt find Him." Thou wilt not indeed find constant spiritual sweetness, for this God does not give without interruption even to those who love Him in this life, but bestows it only from time to time to make them fly onwards towards those boundless delights which He prepares for them in Paradise. He gives them, however, an inward peace which excels all sensual delights; that peace of God which surpasseth all understanding. And what greater delight can be enjoyed by a soul that loves God than to be able to say with true affection: "My God and my All!" St. Francis of Assisi continued a whole night in an ecstasy of Paradise continually repeating these words: "My God and my All! My God and my All!"

Love is strong as death. If a dying man were to give a sign of moving towards any earthly thing, we should then know that he was not dead; death deprives us of everything.

Divine love strips us of everything. Father Segneri, an eminent servant of God said: "Love of God is a beloved thief which robs us of every earthly thing." Another servant of God, when he had given to the poor all his possessions, and was asked what had reduced him to such poverty, took the Book of the Gospels out of his pocket, and said: "This has robbed me of everything." In a word, Jesus Christ will possess our whole heart, and He will have no companion there. St. Augustine writes that the Roman Senate refused to allow adoration to be paid to Jesus Christ because He was a haughty God Who claimed to be honoured alone; and truly as He is our only Lord, He has the right to be adored and loved with our undivided love.

II. St. Francis de Sales says that the pure love of God consumes everything that is not God. When, then, we see in our heart an affection for anything that is not God, or for the sake of God, we must instantly banish it, saying, "Depart! There is no place for thee!" In this consists that complete renunciation which our Lord recommends, if we would be wholly His. It must be complete; that is, renunciation of everything, and especially of our friends and kindred. How many, for the sake of men, have never become Saints! David said that they who please men are despised by God. (Ps. lii. 6).

But, above all, we must renounce ourselves by conquering self-love. Cursed is self-love, that thrusts itself into everything, even our most holy actions, by placing before us our own love of pleasure! How many preachers, how many writers, have thus lost all their labours! Constantly, even in Prayer, in Spiritual Reading, in Holy Communion, there enters some end not pure, either the desire of being noticed, or of merely obtaining spiritual pleasures. We must, therefore, strive to conquer this enemy who would ruin our best deeds. We must, as far as possible, deprive ourselves of everything that pleases us. We must deprive ourselves of this pleasure, for the very reason that it is agreeable; we must do a service to this ungrateful person, because he is ungrateful; we must take this bitter medicine, because it is bitter. Self-love makes it appear that nothing is good in which we do not find our own personal satisfaction; but he that would wholly belong to God must do violence to himself whenever he is employed in anything that is according to his own pleasure, and say always: "Let me lose everything, provided I please God."

For the rest, no one is more contented in this world than he who despises all the good things of the world. The more he strips himself of such good things, the richer he becomes in Divine grace. Thus does the Lord know how to reward those who love Him faithfully. But, O my Jesus, Thou knowest my weakness; Thou hast promised to help those who trust in Thee. Lord, I love Thee; in Thee I trust; give me strength, and make me wholly Thine. In thee also I trust, O my sweet advocate, Mary!