Salesian Literature

Chapter 6  :  Benevolent love means desiring something for our Lord

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God’s love for us can always be traced back to benevolence on his part.  First of all he provides us with all the good he means to have; then he finds his satisfaction in it.  In his benevolent love God fitted David to fulfil his purposes (1 Kings 13:14); then his gratifying love found the prophet capable of such fulfilment.  God, at the beginning of time, created the universe for mankind; then he created man.  Our of sheer benevolence he endowed each thing he made with such good qualities as befitted its nature; then he approved of all that he had made, and found it very good … and rested gratified with his whole task (Gen. 1:31; 2:2).

 

Our love for God begins the other way round.  First, there is the gratification we experience in the supreme goodness, the infinite perfection of which we become aware in the godhead; only then do we go on to practise benevolence.  Just as God’s satisfaction with his creatures is the natural outcome of his benevolence, so the benevolence we feel towards God is but a persistent welcome to the satisfaction we find in him.

 

Benevolent love for God is shown in this way … We cannot actually desire anything for God; his excellence is so perfect, his perfection so infinite, they exceed anything we could ever wish for, or imagine.  We only wish for something, if it is still in the future; nothing is future for go, no good things are still in store for him, he is goodness itself.  Unable to conceive any genuine desires on God’s behalf, we form imaginary ones…

 

“Lord, whom I own as my God, confess that in you is all my good (Ps. 15:1): you lack nothing, have no need of anything I can give; but could I imagine the impossible and believe that you stood in need of anything – though it were to cost my life, though it were to mean the end of me and of everything in the world, I should never cease wanting it for you.  If it were even remotely possible for you to grow in perfection – dear Lord, how I should long for you to do so!  It is all I should live for.  Yet, for all that, such desires are far from my thoughts, so gratifying do I find your utter perfection, which it is beyond the realms of fancy to increase.  Were such desires a possibility, however, in relation to one who is infinitely divine, divinely infinite, they would consume me – so great is my desire for what I am extremely gratified cannot be desired, since the endless infinity of your perfection exceeds the bounds of wish or thought.”

 

Such desires, born of trying to imagine the impossible, may find a place now and then in times of deep spiritual emotion, of unusual fervour.  Often it happened to St. Augustine, we are told; then his love would overflow in this prayer: “I am Augustine, Lord, and you are God.  yet, were the impossible possible, that I were God and you Augustine, I should want to change places with you, want to become Augustine so that you could be God.”

 

There is yet another way of showing what we might call benevolence towards God.  this happens when we desire – after reflecting that we cannot add to the dignity of God in himself – to add our appreciation of his dignity; in other words, to increase ever more and more our gratification at his goodness.

 

We are seeking gratification, then, not for the delight it gives us, but for the delight that God enjoys.

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