Behold the immensity of goods which are in God

This week we are moving into book five (“Of The Two Principal Exercises Of Holy Love Which Consist In Complacency And Benevolence.”) from Saint Francis’ Treatise on the Love of God. Be sure to watch the video “Complacent Love” to help deepen your reflection and give you a new way to embrace his timeless wisdom. (If you’d prefer to read St. Francis’ original text, this week’s video covers Chapter 1-5 of Book V, starting with “Of The Sacred Complacency Of Love; And First Of What It Consists.”)

Keep in mind that the word “complacency” has changed in meaning over the years. Today it means being smug or self-satisfied. The word, in fact, got its origin in the mid-17th century, about the time St. Francis was writing. It is from the medieval Latin complacentia, from the Latin complacere, “to please.”

So if you keep the word pleasing in mind when you read the word complacent, you will be keeping closer to the original meaning of St. Francis. Watch video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4j3xdb9Xr8&feature=youtu.be

Complacent (or Pleasing) Love

Now this movement is practised towards God in this manner. We know by faith that the Divinity is an incomprehensible abyss of all perfection, sovereignly infinite in excellence and infinitely sovereign in goodness. This truth which faith teaches us we attentively consider by meditation, beholding that immensity of goods which are in God, either all together by assembling all the perfections, or in particular by considering his excellences one after another; for example, his all-power, his all-wisdom his all-goodness, his eternity, his infinity…

… The love which we bear to God starts from the first complacency which our heart feels on first perceiving the divine goodness, when it begins to tend towards it. Now when by the exercise of love we augment and strengthen this first complacency, as we have explained in the preceding chapters, we then draw into our hearts the divine perfections and enjoy the divine goodness by rejoicing in it, practising the first part of the amorous contentment of love expressed by the sacred spouse, saying: My beloved to me…

… Compassion, condolence, commiseration, or pity, is no other thing than an affection which makes us share in the suffering and sorrow of him whom we love, drawing the misery which he endures into our heart; whence it is called misericorde, or, as it were, misere de coeur: as complacency draws into the lover’s heart the pleasures and contentments of the thing beloved.

It is love that works both effects, by the virtue it has of uniting the heart which loves to the thing loved, thus making the goods and the evils of friends common; and what happens in compassion much illustrates what regards complacency.

Compassion takes its greatness from the love which produces it. Thus the condolence of mothers in the afflictions of their only children is great, as the Scripture often testifies. How great was the sorrow of Agar’s heart upon the pains of her Ismael, whom she saw well-nigh perish with thirst in the desert! How much did David’s soul commiserate the misery of his Absalom!

1. Given the definition of complacence, which actually means pleasing in this case, how do you define this kind of pleasing love?
2. How does complacence, or pleasing love, become a transforming force in the soul making it like unto God?
3. What is compassion, condolence, commiseration, and pity, as St. Francis mentions?
4. How does complacence, or pleasing love, grow into compassion, as the saint mentions?