Contemplation #37
From The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751)
The doctrine of perfect love comes to us through God’s action alone and not through our own efforts. God instructs the heart, not through ideas but through suffering and adversity. To know this is to understand that God is our only good. To achieve it it is necessary to be indifferent to all material blessings, and to arrive at this point one must be deprived of them all. Thus it is only through continual affliction, misfortune and a long succession of mortifications of very kind to our feelings and affections that we are established in perfect love.
Contemplation #38
Four degrees of love from On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Love is one of the four natural affections, which it is needless to name since everyone knows them. And because love is natural, it is only right to love the Author of nature first of all. Hence comes the first and great commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ But nature is so frail and weak that necessity compels her to love herself first; and this is carnal love, wherewith man loves himself first and selfishly, as it is written, ‘That was not first which is spiritual but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual’ (I Cor. 15.46) . . . So then in the beginning man loves God, not for God’s sake, but for his own.
But when tribulations, recurring again and again, constrain him to turn to God for unfailing help, would not even a heart as hard as iron, as cold as marble, be softened by the goodness of such a Savior, so that he would love God not altogether selfishly, but because He is God? . . . Thereupon His goodness once realized draws us to love Him unselfishly, yet more than our own needs impel us to love Him selfishly.
Contemplation #39
Four degrees of love from On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Whosoever praises God for His essential goodness, and not merely because of the benefits He has bestowed, does really love God for God’s sake, and not selfishly. The third degree of love, we have now seen, is to love God on His own account, solely because He is God.
How blessed is he who reaches the fourth degree of love, wherein one loves himself only in God! In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day: ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To reach this state is to become godlike.
From The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751)
The doctrine of perfect love comes to us through God’s action alone and not through our own efforts. God instructs the heart, not through ideas but through suffering and adversity. To know this is to understand that God is our only good. To achieve it it is necessary to be indifferent to all material blessings, and to arrive at this point one must be deprived of them all. Thus it is only through continual affliction, misfortune and a long succession of mortifications of very kind to our feelings and affections that we are established in perfect love.
Contemplation #38
Four degrees of love from On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Love is one of the four natural affections, which it is needless to name since everyone knows them. And because love is natural, it is only right to love the Author of nature first of all. Hence comes the first and great commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ But nature is so frail and weak that necessity compels her to love herself first; and this is carnal love, wherewith man loves himself first and selfishly, as it is written, ‘That was not first which is spiritual but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual’ (I Cor. 15.46) . . . So then in the beginning man loves God, not for God’s sake, but for his own.
But when tribulations, recurring again and again, constrain him to turn to God for unfailing help, would not even a heart as hard as iron, as cold as marble, be softened by the goodness of such a Savior, so that he would love God not altogether selfishly, but because He is God? . . . Thereupon His goodness once realized draws us to love Him unselfishly, yet more than our own needs impel us to love Him selfishly.
Contemplation #39
Four degrees of love from On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Whosoever praises God for His essential goodness, and not merely because of the benefits He has bestowed, does really love God for God’s sake, and not selfishly. The third degree of love, we have now seen, is to love God on His own account, solely because He is God.
How blessed is he who reaches the fourth degree of love, wherein one loves himself only in God! In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day: ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To reach this state is to become godlike.
posted by Greg at 10:43 AM
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