Love is sufficient of
itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is
its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside
itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its
practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is
a great thing so long as it continually returns to its
fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from
there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the
movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only
one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make
some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For
when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the
sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that
those who love him are made happy by their love of him.
The Bridegroom’s love, or
rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing
but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should
not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that
Love not be loved?
Rightly then does she give
up all other feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in
giving love back, all she can do is to respond to love. And when
she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that in
comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source?
Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom,
creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might
as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.
What then of the bride’s
hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her confident
assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match
stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with
honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself
as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in
love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature
loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole
being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so
ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so
much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of
two hearts that complete and total marriage consists. Or are we
to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a
greater love?
