Salesian Literature

Chapter 9  :  How to be utterly disinterested in our love for God

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One of the finest musicians this world has known, a marvellous lute player, in a short time went stone deaf.  He still continued to sing, however, and to finger his lute with wondrous delicacy, for deafness did not deprive him of his long-accustomed skill.  But, because he could not hear, neither song nor lute could please him.  For this reason he sang and played only to satisfy a prince with whom he had been brought up as a child.

 

Nothing pleased the musician more than to please the prince, to win from him appreciation of a song.  Yet sometimes, to prove the musician’s love, the prince would tell him to sing, then leave him for the hunting-field.  On and on would sing the other, as though his master were still there; no pleasure in it for himself – his deafness deprived him of the enjoyment of melody, his master’s absence took away the satisfaction of making the prince happy.

 

A true heart, my God, a heart true to thy service; its song, its music are for thee!  Wake, my soul, wake, echoes of harp and viol; dawn shall find me watching (Ps. 56:8-9).  The human heart, after all, is charity’s chorister; it is harp and viol too.  Usually this chorister hears his own voice, enjoys listening to the melody of his own song; in other words, the human heart enjoys its love for God, utterly content to love what is lovable.

 

Do you see what I mean? … Our hearts, at the threshold of devotion, love God in order to become one with him, pleasing to him, and to imitate his eternal love for us.  But perhaps gradually, as we grow in charity, there is an imperceptible change of heart; instead of loving God to please him, we begin to love for the pleasure we feel; instead of falling in love with God, we fall in love with our love for him.

 

Thus the chorister who began by singing to and for God is now rather singing to and for himself; if he enjoys singing, it is not so much to please God’s ear as his own.

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