Salesian Literature

Chapter 6:  How the love of God controls all other loves

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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.

 

For some mysterious reason younger brothers in the Scriptures turned the tables on their elders.  Ismael lost his inheritance to Isaac; Esau became the servant of his younger brother; Joseph came to be reverenced not only by his brothers, but by his father too – and even his mother in the person of Benjamin – as he had foreseen in the dreams of his youth (Gen. 37:6-10).  Certainly, the love of God is the last of the emotions of the human heart to come to birth; for as St. Paul says, natural life came first, then spiritual life (1 Cor. 15:46).  But this latest-born inherits complete control, and self-love – like another Esau – becomes its servant.  It is not merely all the other movements of the soul that do reverence and submit, but intellect and will too – like Joseph’s father and mother.  Everything is subject to this love from heaven: king or nothing is its motto.  To live, it needs to reign: and it reigns supreme, or not at all.

 

Isaac, Jacob and Joseph were supernatural children, since their mothers – Sara, Rebecca and Rachel – were naturally sterile and conceived them as favours from God; that is why they were set above their brethren.  Divine love, too, is a wonder-child; no human will can give it life, only the Holy Spirit can pour it out in our hearts; and supernatural as it is, it must take first place, reign over all the emotions – even over intellect and will.

 

Of course, there are other supernatural movements in the soul – fear, piety, fortitude and hope; just as Rachel and Rebecca had other supernatural children – Esau and Benjamin.  But the love of God is master, heir and superior, as the child of promise (cf. Gal. 4:28); it is the reason why heaven is promised to man.  Salvation is glimpsed by faith; it is anticipated by hope; but it is achieved only by charity.  Faith points the way to the land of promise, like a pillar of cloud and fire, a misty light; hope feeds on us on the journey with the manna of sweetness; but only charity actually leads us in – the ark that bears witness to God’s covenant, bringing us safely through the judgement, and abiding with the people of that heavenly land, God’s truly chosen race.  No pillar of faith there, to act as guide; no manna of hope, to serve as food!

 

Charity dwells in the highest region of the soul, where it pays its tribute of sacrifice like Abraham on the mountain (Gen. 22:2), or our Lord on Calvary’s summit. It is high enough for all the faculties, all the emotions of the soul to hear it, and obey.  In gentleness of control it knows no equal; for love has no convicts of slaves, it compels obedience by force of its charm.

 

Virtues have a place in the soul, to regulate its movements.  Charity, as first among the virtues, governs and moderates everything else.  It does so because God, who made man to wear his own image and likeness, means men – after his own example – to find in love the motive and mainspring of all they do.

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