Presence of God

O Lord, grant that I may love You for Yourself and not for my own consolation, and that in loving You, I may always seek Your will, not mine.

Meditation

I. To love a person is to desire his well-being. We understand, therefore, that the essence of love is in the act of the will by which we wish good. This does not take away from the fact that the act may often be accompanied by sensible affection, making our iove both an act of the will and of the sensibility. Nevertheless, it is clear that the substance of real love is not to be found in the emotions but in the act of the will. Charity does not change our manner of loving, but penetrates it, supernaturalizes it, making the will and the sensibility capable of loving God. Yes, even sensible affection can be engaged in the act of supernatural love; God does not despise this humbler and less lofty manifestation of our love for Him, because He has commanded us to love Him not only with our whole mind and our whole soul, but also with our whole heart. All our powers—intellectual, volitive, and affective—are engaged in the act of love, and yet the substance of this act is not found in the feelings but in the will. Therefore, when our emotions are cold in our love of God, and we feel nothing, there is no reason for us to be disturbed; we will find less satisfaction in our love—for it is much more pleasant for us to feel that we are loving—but our act of love will be equally true and perfect. Even more, lacking the impetus and pleasure which come from our feelings, we will be obliged to apply ourself more resolutely to the act of the will and this, far from harming it, will make it more voluntary, and therefore, more meritorious. Precisely because the substance of love is in the act of the will that wishes good to God, in order to make our love purer and more intense, Our Lord will often deprive us of all consoling feelings; we will no longer feel that we love God—and this will give us pain—but in reality, we will love Him in the measure that we will with determination what He wills, and want His good pleasure and delight above all things. Besides, it is not in our power to feel love but it is always in our power to make voluntary acts of love; it is always in our power to wish good to God, striving with all our strength to live for Him and to please Him.

II. St. John of the Cross says : It is by an act of the will that the soul is united to God; this act is love. Union with God is never wrought by feeling or exertions of the desire, for these remain in the soul as aims and ends (L). The operation of the will is the act of love by means of which we wish good to God and conform our will to His. This operation properly ends in God, and is the true means of uniting us to Him. The feeling oflove, on the contrary, is only a subjective impression sometimes produced in our sensibility by the act of love. It ends in the soul which experiences it and is a source of consolation, but we can clearly see that of itself it has no power to unite the soul to God. However, the soul can and should make use of it to give itself to God with more generosity, and in this sense, the feeling of love intensifies the operation of the will. Unfortunately, as we are so eager to seek satisfaction even in the most sacred things, the soul may easily stop at the sweetness of these feelings, and then it ceases to tend toward God with all its strength.

Therefore, it is very expedient for us that God should make us go through periods of aridity, thus forcing us to go to Him by the pure operation of our will. Then, says the mystical doctor, the soul sets on God alone its affection, joy, contentment, and love, leaving all things behind and loving Him above them all. And he adds, He would be very ignorant who should think that, because spiritual delight and sweetness are failing him, God is failing him, and he should rejoice and be glad because he has them and think that for this reason he has God (ibid..). No, true love and union with God do not consist in this, but in the pure operation of the will, which seeks God and His will above everything. Therefore, if we really want to love God and be united to Him, we must hunger and thirst for God’s will alone, that is, seek His will alone, preferring it always to our own. This way of loving takes us completely out of ourself, out of what is deepest in our ego, our own will, and plunges us wholly into the will of God. If we truly realize that to attain perfect union with God, our whole life must be enclosed in His will, we will feel the need of being constantly generous in order to go out of our own will at every moment and abide in God’s will.

Colloquy

Ah, my God and Lord, how many there are who seek in You their own consolation and pleasure, and desire favors and gifts from You; but those who long to give You pleasure, please You and to give You something at their own cost, setting their own interests last, are very few.

Give me the grace, O God, to follow You with a real love and a spirit of sacrifice, so that I may never seek for consolation or pleasure either in You or in aught else. I do not desire to pray to You for favors, for I see clearly that I have already received enough of these, and all my anxiety is set upon rendering You some service such as You merit, although it cost me much. O my Beloved, all that is rough and toilsome I desire for myself, and all that is sweet and delectable I desire for You (J.C. DNII, 19,4 - SMII, 52).

O God, how necessary it is that we should learn to love You without any motive of self-interest : To walk along the road of love as one should, we must have the one desire of serving You, O Christ crucified; therefore, I neither ask for consolations nor desire them, and I beg You not to give them to me in this life.

No, my God, love consists not in interior favors but in the firmness of our determination to please You in everything, and to endeavor in all possible ways not to offend You, and in praying for Your greater honor and glory. It consists especially in perfect conformity to Your will, so that I too want—and steadfastly—all that I know You will, accepting the bitter and the sweet with equal joy. O strong love of God! I really think nothing seems impossible to one who loves (T.J. Ini C IV, 2 - 1; F, 5; Con, 3).