<http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/stj18037.htm>On the Love of God by Saint John Vianney Emacs! "If you love Me, keep My Commandments."
Nothing is so common among Christians as to say, "O my God; I love
Thee," and nothing more rare, perhaps, than the love of the good God.
Satisfied with making outward acts I of love, in which our poor heart
often has no share, we think we have fulfilled the whole of the
precept. An error, an illusion; for see, my children, Saint John says
that we must not love the good God in word, but in deed. Our Lord
Jesus Christ also says, "If anyone love Me he will keep My Word:' If
we judge by this rule, there are very few Christians who truly love
God, since there are so few who keep His Commandments. Yet nothing is
more essential than the love of God. It is the first of all virtues,
a virtue so necessary, that without it we shall never get to Heaven;
and it is in order to love God that we are on the earth. Even if the
good God did not command it, this feeling is so natural to us, that
our heart should be drawn to it of its own accord.
But the misfortune is that we lavish our love upon objects unworthy
of it, and refuse it to Him alone who deserves to be infinitely
loved. Thus, my children, one person will love riches, another will
love pleasures; and both will offer to the good God nothing but the
languishing remains of a heart worn out in the service of the world.
From thence comes insufficient love, divided love, which is for that
very reason unworthy of the good God; for He alone, being infinitely
above all created good, deserves that we should love Him above all
things: more than our possessions, because they are earthly; more
than our friends, because they are mortal; more than our life,
because it is perishable; more than ourselves, because we belong to
Him. Our love, my children, if it is true, must be without limit, and
must influence our conduct....
If the Saviour of the world, addressing Himself to each one of us
separately, were now to ask us the same question that He formerly
asked Saint Peter: "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?" could we
answer with as much confidence as that great Apostle, "Yea, Lord,
Thou knowest that I love Thee"? Domine, tu scis quia amo te. We have
perhaps pronounced these words without taking in their meaning and
extent; for, my children, to love the good God is not merely to say
with the mouth, "O my God! I love Thee!" Oh, no! where is the sinner
who does not sometimes use this language?
To love the good God is not only to feel from time to time some
emotions of tenderness towards God; this sensible devotion is not
always in our own power. To love the good God is not to be faithful
in fulfilling part of our duties and to neglect the rest. The good
God will have no division: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy
whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength:'
This shows the strength of the Commandment to love God. To love God
with our whole heart is to prefer Him to everything, so as to be
ready to lose all our possessions, our honour, our life, rather than
offend this good Master. To love God with our whole heart is to love
nothing that is incompatible with the love of God; it is to love
nothing that can share our heart with the good God: it is to renounce
all our passions, all our ill-regulated desires. Is it thus, my
children, that we love the good God?
To love the good God with our whole mind is to make the sacrifice to
Him of our knowledge and our reason, and to believe all that He has
taught. To love the good God with our whole mind is to think of Him
often, and to make it our principal study to know Him well. To love
the good God with our whole strength is to employ our possessions,
our health, and our talents, in serving Him and glorifying Him. It is
to refer all our actions to Him, as our last end. Once more, is it
thus that we love the good God? Judging by this invariable rule, how
few Christians truly love God!
Do those bad Christians love the good God, who are the slaves of
their passions? Do those worldly persons love the good God, who seek
only to gratify their body and to please the world? Is God loved by
the miser, who sacrifices Him for a vile gain? Is He loved by that
voluptuary, who abandons himself to vices the most opposite to divine
love? Is He loved by that man who thinks of nothing but wine and good
cheer? Is He loved by that other man, who cherishes an aversion to
his neighbour, and will not forgive him? Is He loved by that young
girl, who loves nothing but pleasures, and thinks of nothing but
indulgence and vanity? No, no, my children, none of these persons
love the good God; for we must love Him with a love of preference,
with an active love!
If we had rather offend the good God than deprive ourselves of a
passing satisfaction, than renounce those guilty meetings, those
shameful passions, we do not love the good God with a love of
preference, since we love our pleasures, our passions, better than
the good God Himself. Let us go down into our own souls; let us
question our hearts, my children, and see if we do not love some
creature more than the good God. We are permitted to love our
relations, our possessions, our health, our reputation; but this love
must be subordinate to the love we should have for God, so that we
may be ready to make the sacrifice of it if He should require it....
Can you suppose that you are in these dispositions--you who look upon
mortal sin as a trifle, who keep it quietly on your conscience for
months, for years, though you know that you are in a state most
displeasing to the good God? Can you suppose that you love the good
God? Can you suppose that you love the good God--you who make no
efforts to correct yourselves; you who will deprive yourselves of
nothing; you who offend the Creator every time that you find
opportunity? Yes, my children, what the miser loves with his whole
heart is money; what the drunkard loves with his whole heart is wine;
what the libertine loves with his whole heart is the object of his
passion. You, young girls, you who had rather offend God than give up
your finery and your vanities, you say that you love God; say rather
that you love yourselves.
No, no, my children; it is not thus that the good God is to be loved,
for we must love Him not only with a love of preference, but also
with an active love. "Love," says Saint Augustine, "cannot remain
without the constant action of the soul: Non potest vacare amor in
anima amantis. Yes," says this great saint, "seek for a love that
does not manifest itself in works, and you will find none:' What!
could it be, O my God, that Thy love alone should be barren, and that
the Divine fire, which ought to enkindle the whole world, should be
without activity and without strength?
When you love a person, you show him the more or less affection
according as the ardour of your love for him is more or less great.
See, my children, what the saints were like, who were all filled with
the love of the good God: nothing cost them too much; they joyfully
made the greatest sacrifices; they distributed their goods to the
poor, rendered services to their enemies, led a hard and penitential
life; tore themselves from the pleasures of the world, from the
conveniences of life, to bury themselves alive in solitude; they
hastened to torments and to death, as people hasten to a feast. Such
were the effects which the love of the good God produced in the
saints; such ought it to produce in us. But, my children, we are not
penetrated with the love of God; we do not love the good God. Can
anyone say, indeed, that he loves the good God, who is so easily
frightened, and who is repulsed by the least difficulty? Alas! what
would have become of us if Jesus Christ had loved us only as we love
Him? But, no. Triumphing over the agonies of the Cross, the
bitterness of death, the shame of the most ignominious tortures,
nothing costs Him too dear when He has to prove that He loves us.
That is our only model. If our love is active, it will manifest
itself by the works which are the effects of love, because the love
of the good God is not only a love of preference, but a pious
affection, a love of obedience, which makes us practice His
Commandments; an active love, which makes us fulfil all the duties of
a good Christian. Such is the love, my children, which God requires
from us, to which He has so many titles, which He has purchased by so
many benefits heaped upon us by His death for us upon the Cross.
What happiness, my children, to love the good God! There is no joy,
no happiness, no peace, in the heart of those who do not love the
good God on earth. We desire Heaven, we aspire to it; but, that we
may be sure to attain to it, let us begin to love the good God here
below, in order to be able to love Him, to possess Him eternally in
His holy Paradise.
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Lord, may everything we do begin with Your inspiration and continue
with Your help,
so that all our prayers and works may begin in You and by You be happily ended.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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