with St Francis de Sales
The one who loves me will be loved by my Father;
I, too, will love it, and I will manifest myself to him.”
John 14,15-21
From the Treatise on the Love of God
Book 2 chap. 8 (IV 112)
My god Theotime, how much the heart of God is in love with our love! Wouldn’t he have so it is not enough for him to give us permission to love him, as Laban allowed Jacob to love his beautiful Rachel? But no, he does much more: he declares his own passion in love with us, and asks us to love him with all our might, so that neither the infinite distance which exists between His Majesty and our misery, nor any other pretext, ever dissuades us from loving him!
In this it is for us shows, Theotime, that it is not in vain that he has left us this inclination natural to love it. By this universal commandment, he urges us to employ this inclination so that it is not useless, and so that we can implement, it provides us with all the means we need…
However, living according to God is loving. See, then, Theotime, how much God desires us to love him. ! But he does not just make known to everyone his extreme desire to be loved, so that everyone knows; He’ll even knock on the door in door, declaring “if anyone opens, he will enter his house and will supper with him”, that is, he will show him all kinds of benevolence.
What does all this mean, Theotime? All this means that God does not give us only that which is just enough to love him, and thus save us; he gives us largely, magnificently, to the extent of what we can expect from such great goodness as the Siena.
My dear Theotime, God does not only give the obstinate the few necessary remedies at their conversion, but for each one, he implements all the riches of his goodness.