Salesian Literature

Salesian Views on

::   Laity  ::   Little Virtues  ::   Love  ::   Love of God  ::   Love of Neighbour

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Love of God

 

How the love of God controls all other loves

Treatise on the Love of God, 1:6. All the spiritual faculties of man are controlled by the will; and the will is controlled by what it loves, even to resembling it.  The love of God, however, holds sway over all other loves – so naturally dominant that, unless it has the mastery, it ceases to exist.

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Examination of Conscience: On one’s progress in the devout life

Introduction to the Devout Life, 5:3. The second point of this exercise is rather long. I would suggest that, in order to carry it out, it is not necessary to go through it all at once, but on different occasions. 

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God’s eternal love for us

Introduction to the Devout Life, 5:14. Consider the eternal love which God had for you.  Already before our Lord Jesus Christ, as man suffered for you on the Cross, his divine Majesty thought of you in his sovereign goodness and loved you infinitely.  But when did he begin to love you? 

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Mystical Theology – another name for prayer

Treatise on the Love of God, 6:1.  We express our love for God chiefly in two ways – spontaneously (affectively), and deliberately (effective; or, as St. Bernard puts it, actively). In the first of these ways we grow fond of God, of what he likes; in the second we serve God, do what he enjoins. 

 

Toward the Integration of Life and Prayer

What does it mean to love God above all things?

Treatise on the Love of God, 10:6. God’s true lovers know many varied degrees of love.  For all that, a single commandment of charity binds each one equally, and in general, with an identical obligation, even though it may be kept in different ways, with an endless variety of perfections. 

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Treatise on the Love of God, 10:7. We do not always have any clear idea, nor ever perfect certainty (at least not “the certitude of faith”) that we possess the true love of God necessary for salvation.  For all that, we are not without several signs. 

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Is God’s love tied to personality types?

Treatise on the Love of God, 12:1. Natural temperament plays no small part in the loving contemplation of God – wrote a great monk of this century – and people with affectionate natures have a distinct advantage.  I do not think he means, however, that charity is apportioned to men or angels on the strength of natural qualities; nor does he mean that God shares his love with men in proportion to their natural traits and talents.  This would contradict scripture.

 

Is love hampered by our necessary occupations?

Treatise on the Love of God, 12:4. Curiosity, ambition, anxiety, an unawareness or forgetfulness of why we are in this world – these are what fill our lives with many more difficulties than duties, much more worry than work, a great deal more bother than business.

 

Is love hampered by lack of great opportunities?

Treatise on the Love of God, 12:6. The grandiose schemes some people evolve of doing great things for God!  they dream of wonderful deeds, unusual sufferings – deeds and sufferings outside their present experience, and which will probably never come their way.  This leads them to imagine that with one leap they have reached the heights of love.

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How to bring love to everything one does

Treatise on the Love of God, 12:9. If love for God informs our intentions, when we contemplate some good work or enter upon some profession, all our subsequent action receive their value and derive their dignity from this love in which they originated.  The natural activities of my profession – or actions which are an essential part of what I have planned to do – obviously result from my original choice.

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