Salesian Literature

Chapter 10:  The union love craves is spiritual

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Love seeks union, but union of the spirit.  It was by a kiss, Theotimus – remember? – that the bride expressed her desire for union with the bridegroom in the Song of Songs; a kiss, the symbol of oneness of spirit created by mutual outpouring of soul into soul.  Man is the lover, but love is an act of his will; therefore the goal of love will bear an essential resemblance to the will.  The will is spiritual, so the union which love craves will also be spiritual.  No merely carnal union ever fulfils the demands of love; instead of enriching the heart, love’s cradle and throne, it degrades it.

 

This is not to deny that some human passions thrive on love – superfluous excrescences, like mistletoe on trees.  For all that, they have nothing to do with love; they are parasites – not merely unfit to preserve or foster love, but gravely harmful to it; not only do they weaken it, but ultimately (if not suppressed) they ruin it completely.

 

The reason is this: the more things the soul has to do – similar and varied – the less perfectly, the less energetically does it accomplish its work.  The soul is a limited being; its energy, on that account, is also limited.  If we devote our spiritual energy to a variety of things, we are bound to have less for each one.  The more things that claim a man’s attention, the less attention he can give to each.

 

Rarely do those who know a lot of things know them perfectly; mental powers dissipated in an effort to know many things are less penetrating, less energetic, than if they were all brought to bear on one thing.  So, when the soul is actively employed in loving in several different ways at once, its activity – because divided – is undoubtedly less energetic, less perfect.

 

We have three ways of loving: spiritually, rationally, sensitively.  Love diffused in all three ways is obviously more extensive, but less intensive; concentrated in one way, it would be less extensive, but more intensive.  One of the symbols we use for love is fire: expel it from the mouth of a cannon, it gives a brilliant flash; let it escape through several holes along the barrel, its brilliance would be dimmed.  Since love is an act of the will, the man who wants to love nobly, gallantly, who wants this activity to be powerful, energetic, must limit its forces to the spiritual sphere.  Were a man to concentrate on the sensitive sphere, this would proportionately weaken his attention to the intellectual sphere, where alone true love is to be found.

 

The philosophers of old knew two kinds of ecstasy: one lifting us above ourselves, the other dragging us below ourselves.  They seemed to imply, those writers, that man is some sort of middle being – through his intellectual ability sharing the nature of angels, through his senses the nature of animals.  Yet, by his way of life, by taking constant care, he can emancipate himself from that middle state.  He can ascend to the spiritual world of the intellect, and become like the angels; or he can descend to the world of the sense, and become like the beasts.  Whichever way he takes, he experiences an ecstasy – a going out of himself.

 

Those who let themselves be captivated by the pleasures of the mind, by the things of God, are consequently out of themselves – above their natural level.  Going out of self, like that, is a blessing to be longed for; it lifts a man into a nobler, more exalted state – the state of angelic men or human angels; though his nature brands him as human, the activity of his soul is angelic.  On the other hand, those who fall willing captives to the alluring pleasures of the senses descend from their half-way state to the lowest of brute beasts; their nature marks them as human, but their behaviour entitles them to be called brutish.  Poor wretches, to go out of themselves only to reach a level far beneath the dignity of their natural state!

 

What I am saying is this; if love finds its outlet through the senses in a downward direction, the possibility of its finding an outlet on a higher plane is proportionately lessened.  The union to which sensual love tends, far from preserving or fostering true love, only weakens, dissipates, ruins it.  True love, love that is really deep, is a spiritual product. 

 

So you see, Theotimus, unions which aim at gratification of animal passions, far from giving it life to love, are gravely prejudicial and utterly weaken it.  It is the story of incestuous Ammon over again … Love for Tamar, his sister, caused him to pine away wanting her.  Brutal physical union is achieved, his love turned to such hatred that he could not bear the sight of her, but thrust her dishonourably from the room (2 Sam. 13).  A cruel injustice to the claims of love – to match his shameful injustice to the ties of blood!

 

Undoubtedly most coarse, low, earthly-minded people calculate the value of love as they would gold – the more of it, the better; the heavier it weighs, the greater its purchasing power.  To their minds, physical love seems a stronger thing – because it is more violent, more passionate; a firmer thing – because it is homely, earthly; a greater thing – because it is more sensual, fiercer.  Reality is the other way round: love is like fire – the finer the fuel, the brighter the flame.

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