Salesian Literature

Chapter 2  :  Our longing for charity is to be unceasing

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Jaded a sick man’s appetite may be, but he longs for a healthy one.  It is not food he wants, but a taste for it.  To know if we are loving God more than all things else – that simply cannot be, unless God himself reveal it to us.  What we can know is whether we long to love him; and the moment we feel a longing for charity, we know that we are growing to love him.

 

Longing to love and love, however, both come from the same faculty – the will.  That is why, immediately we conceive a genuine desire to love God, we take love’s first step; and the greater our longing, the deeper our love. Passionate longing makes a passionate lover.

 

Oh for a grace from God!  That would be enough to set us on fire with longing.  The sighing of the poverty-stricken would have found audience then; God would have heeded them and brought grace to their hearts (cf. Ps. 9:38).

 

Poor, indeed, the man who is not sure whether he even wants to love God!  once let him long to love God – though he still goes cap-in-hand, it is with the Lord’s blessing on his head: Blessed are those who God a-begging in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs (Mt. 5:3)[1].

 

Such a one was St. Augustine with his cry: “Love! Progress! Self-renounced! God within my grasp!”  Such a one was St. Francis: “May death seal my love for you, friend of my heart, who stooped to die to win my love.”  Such were St. Catherine of Siena and the saintly Mother Teresa, their whole souls thirsting for love – as deer for running water (cf. Ps. 41:1) – with the appeal on their lips: “Lord, give me water such as that (Jn. 4:15).

 

This our cry, then, nigh and day: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love!”[2]  Yes! Love is something from heaven; will it never pervade my soul?

 

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[1]  According to the Greek version.

[2]  Cf. Mass of Pentecost.

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