Salesian Literature

Chapter 2  :  Gratifying love leads to spiritual childhood

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Happy the man, heaven knows, who is consciously aware that God is God, his goodness infinite!  Gratifying love is the door through which the heavenly bridegroom comes to take his supper with us, for us to sup with him (cf. Rev. 3:20).  His loving kindness feeds us with its delights; his divine perfections completely satisfy the heart by the gratification they afford.  Supper is followed soon by sleep; gratifying love brings us to rest in what delights us, on which we feed our hearts.

 

Into his garden, then, let my true love come, and taste his fruit (Cant. 5:1).  Into his garden the divine bridegroom comes, when he visits a devoted soul.  Since his delights is to mix with the sons of Adam (Prov. 8:31), what more fitting abode can await him than the garden of a soul wearing his own image and likeness? In that garden his own hands have planted the gratifying love we have for his goodness, the love on which we feed.  His goodness too delights and feeds on our gratification, this, in turn, grows as we become aware that God is pleased to see that we find our contentment in him.  The result of all these mutual delights is a supremely gratifying love, of which the fruit is his, who is happy to find us content with him.

 

Where is a child’s treasure, but its mother’s embrace?  It knows nothing richer than that, precious beyond gold or jewel (Ps. 118:127), prized above all else the world may hold.  Happy and rich beyond measure, then, that man accounts himself who contemplates the infinite treasures of God’s perfections; love, through gratification, gives him possession of all God’s excellence, all God’s contentment.  The soul thrills with joy, as a child responds to its mother’s welcoming arms, at the sight of the precious perfections of the king of charity; especially since God’s own love discloses them – an infinite love that is the brightest perfection of them all.

 

The princes of this world keep their treasures in their palaces, their weapons in their armouries; as for the princes of heaven – in his heart his treasure lies, his breast conceals his armour.  Goodness, his treasure is: love, his armour: with these he woos and wins the soul, as mother does her child.

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