“His own sheep, he calls them each by name,
and he brings them out.”
Jn 10:1-10
From the Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5 Chapter 11 (IV 294)
Divine Love reigns over the heart of the Savior as on a royal throne. He looks, through the slit on his pierced side, at all the hearts of the children of men. This heart, which is the king of all hearts, always holds its eyes on our hearts.
But as those who look through the lattices see and are only glimpsed, so the divine love that reigns in this heart, or rather this heart of divine love, always sees our heart, the gaze charged with tenderness. But we don’t see it; we only glimpse it. O God! If we could see Him as He is, we would die of love, since we are mortal, as He Himself died of love for us while He was mortal.
He would still die from it, if he were not immortal. Oh! if we could hear this divine heart, hear the infinite sweetness of her voice when she sings the hymn of praise to the Godhead!
He invites us this dear Friend of our soul: Arise, he says, come out of yourself, take flight behind me, my dove, my beautiful, join me in this place where all is joy and breathes only praise and blessings.
Come, my beloved, and to see me better, come to the window through which I look at you, come and consider my heart through the cleft of the cave which is the wound on my side, which was made when my body, like a house reduced to a mansion, was so pitifully treated on the tree of the cross. Come and show me your face: I see it now without you showing it to me; but in heaven not only will I see it, but it is you who will show it to me, for then you will see that I see you.