Salesian Literature

Chapter 2  :  Compliant submission flowing from benevolent love

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Now for the way in which this desire of ours expresses itself … We have been highly gratified to discover that God is supremely good; consequently our benevolent love longs that he should be the object of every conceivable love.  We have found our delight in the supreme excellence of God’s perfection; as a result we long for him to be supremely praised, honoured, adored.  We have known the joy of reflecting that God is not merely the first principle of all things, but also their last end, the author, preserver and lord of all; for this reason we want everyone to submit to him in utter obedience.  We realize that God’s will is perfect, straightforward, just and fair; in view of this we desire it to be the supreme rule and law of all things, and we long for all other wills to accept it, serve it, obey it.

 

Notice, however, Theotimus, that I am not referring here to the obedience we owe God as our Lord and Master, our Father and Benefactor; such obedience belongs to the virtue of justice, not of love.  No, I am not discussing that at the moment.

 

Were there no hell, you see, as a punishment for the wicked, or no heaven as a reward for the good; had we no obligation or duty to God (imagining the impossible, which it is almost impossible to imagine) – still, benevolent love would lead us to give entire submission and obedience to God from choice and inclination.  Indeed we should even know a gentle loving compulsion to this, in view of the supreme goodness, justice and uprightness of God’s will.

 

Do we not find people, impelled by benevolent love, freely submitting themselves to authority, binding themselves where previously they knew no obligation? … A girl does this when she marries; so does a young man who goes into the army, or who enters a religious Order.

 

That is the way, then, in which the heart of man grows in likeness to the heart of God – when benevolent love causes us to leave our hearts in God’s hands, to be moulded to his will, fashioned to his liking.

 

Here lies the essence of love’s obedience, which has no need of sanctions or rewards to prompt it, no need of laws or commands to impel it.  It anticipates all these, its submission prompted solely by God’s perfect goodness, which entitles him to the submission and obedience of every will, so that always, everywhere and in everything his plans are followed, so that all other wills are one with his.

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