Amore

Deepening

The heart can accept but also reject love. Love will never be a logical necessity, the fruit of reasoning, a structure inherent in human nature, but it will always be the result of my freedom. Freedom is the oxygen in which love breathes and lives. And it is in this free offering that it becomes an essential gift that can not be bought at any price. It is an inestimable gift, the precious pearl hidden in our hearts, and to find it we must know how to get rid of the chains of every possession.

And it is precisely the revealing of love as a gift offered to our freedom, which urges us to question: love who are you? Are you the one who loves? Are you the one who is loved? And then, who has the right to question about love? The one who loves or the one who is loved?

Who loves has the privilege and the right to question and answer about love: do you love me or do not you love me? He questions the signs of love in the actions and attitudes of those who love: if he does this, he loves me, otherwise he does not love me. And his judgment is unquestionable on the proof of love. However, being a free gift, it does not allow blackmail.

Both those who love and those who are loved can not stand up as a judge of love, only love can question and respond to love. Only love knows who he really is, knows the authentic ways of expressing himself, and only he is able to know where he is present and where he is absent. Love has its own language that stimulates us to learn, an ancient language that initially appears new because it is unknown, a language that has always been and will remain forever. The trace of this teaching is well marked by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians: charity is not envious, he does not boast, does not swell, does not lack respect, does not seek his own interest, does not get angry, does not hold account of the evil received.

When love speaks in us, we hear its voice and listening to it we perceive the dazzling truth of its saying. As soon as we question ourselves about the reasons and motivations of this language, we feel like sinking into a sea of light. However, we can not fail to question ourselves, because to act, we need motivation, a reason.

Love saves itself and reveals its truth, not that given by our sometimes mistaken beliefs, as light that shines in the darkness that can not be hidden. Who boasts and swells lives in the ephemeral of a senseless vanity, like those who make castles in the air, at the mercy of the wind.

Love is a testimony of oneself, bears misunderstanding, ingratitude and anger, envy and resentment; it carries the weights of others. It does not demolish, but builds up. Love believes in itself knows that it is the strongest.

Love does not seek its own things, its own self-interest, opposing all selfishness in all its manifest and occult expressions. In love, mine and yours disappear and ours rises.

The winning model of this language that confuses us is the love that became man and time, Jesus Christ. It is love that conquers the enemy (the prince of this world) and establishes the kingdom of God. He does not seek his own things but sacrifices his life, with total self-denial.

Reflect, God created you in his image, assuming your nature has loved you so much to redeem you. Not only that, now it preserves your nature and infuses it with grace, so that you may have Himself as food in this life, and He has promised you Himself as a future reward. For so much love you ought to desire his glory and everything that happens to you must be considered a nothingness, be it tribulations, insults honor or consolation. If you are able to act for the salvation of your soul do not desist because you find it difficult, free with the rush of the mind the love that burns in your heart, and only then you can do all the good.

If you burn with love for your Creator, nothing will seem difficult to you, in fact everything will seem light, lovable, sweet, and you will have the desire to put an end to every little lack. The more you walk the path of love the more you burn with ardor, your heart will overflow with a strong desire to please God.

Enter into your heart, and in the actions you accomplish your God is exalted. But if you have a vile and earthly heart, nothing will seem difficult to you. What you would gladly do for you, you will find it burdensome for God. The evil eye detests the rays of the sun of justice and loves to walk in darkness. You will exude spiritual vices, ignoring that you are overcome by demons. Woe to you that you can not even be compared to the beasts. Perhaps you were at least like pack animals, who undergo the yoke of their masters. You can not accuse them of guilt while you commit yourself to doing evil. If you have your hands and feet bound in God's service, you are only lacking to be thrown "out into the darkness".

"When I love God, I do not love a bodily beauty, nor a temporal grace, not the splendor of light, so dear to my gaze, not sweet melodies, not the fragrance of the ointments, not the manna or honey, not the members accept of the embraces of the flesh, none of this I love, when I love my God. But what do I love? I love a kind of light and voice and smell and food and embrace of the inner man that is in me, where it shines in my soul the light not wrapped in space, where a voice resounds not overwhelmed by time, where it smells a perfume not dispersed by the wind, where it is caught a taste not attenuated by voracity, where a close is not interrupted by satiety"(sant'Agostino).

Fix your mind and your heart only in God, then the melody of his eloquence will resound in your ears, he will reveal to you the treasures of his wisdom and grant you his love. Not being able to bear so much pleasure, He will sustain you by welcoming you on his heart and you will be absorbed by so much sweetness.