You ask me what I have to say as regards the love of benevolence towards
God. What good thing can we possibly wish for God which He has not already,
What can we desire for Him which He does not possess far more fully than we
can desire Him to have it?
What good can we do to Him to Whom all our goods belong, and Who has all
good in Himself; or, rather, Who is Himself all good?
I reply to this question as I have done to others, that there are many
spiritual persons, and some even of the most gifted, who are greatly
mistaken in their view of this matter.
We must distinguish in God two sorts of good, the one interior, the
other exterior. The first is Himself; for His goodness, like His other
attributes, is one and the same thing with His essence or being.
Now this good, being infinite, can neither be augmented by our serving God
and by our honouring Him, nor can it be diminished by our rebelling against
Him and by our working against Him.
It is of it that the Psalmist speaks when he says that our goods are
nothing unto Him.
But there is another kind of good which is exterior; and this, though it
belongs to God, is not in Him, but in His creatures, just as the moneys of
the king are, indeed, his, but they are in the coffers of his treasurers
and officials.
This exterior good consists in the honours, obedience, service, and homage
which His creatures owe and render to Him: creatures of whom each one
has of necessity His glory as the final end and aim of its creation. And
this good it is which we can, with the grace of God, desire for Him, and
ourselves give to Him, and which we can either by our good works increase
or by our sins take from.
In regard to this exterior good, we can practise towards God the love of
benevolence by doing all things, and all good works in our power, in order
to increase His honour, or by having the intention to bless, glorify, and
exalt Him in all our actions; and much more by refraining from any action
which might tarnish God's glory and displease Him, Whose will is our
inviolable law.
The love of benevolence towards God does not stop here. For, because
charity obliges us to love our neighbour as ourselves from love of God, we
try to urge on our fellow-men to promote this Divine glory, each one as far
as he can. We incite them to do all sorts of good, so as thereby to magnify
God the more. Thus the Psalmist said to his brethren, _O magnify the Lord
with me, and let us extol His name together_.[1]
This same ardour incites and presses us also (_urget_ is the word used by
St. Paul) to do our utmost to aid our neighbour to rise from sin, which
renders him displeasing to God, and to prevent sin by which the Divine
Goodness is offended. This is what is properly called zeal, the zeal which
consumed the Psalmist when he saw how the wicked forget God, and which
caused him to cry out: _My zeal has made me pine away, because my enemies
forgot thy words_.[2] And again, _The zeal of thy house hath eaten me
up_.[3]
You ask if this love of benevolence might not also be exercised towards God
in respect of that interior and infinite good which He possesses and which
is Himself. I reply, with our Blessed Father in his Theotimus, that we can
wish Him to have this good, by rejoicing in the fact that He has it, and
that He is what He is; hence that vehement outburst of David, _Know ye,
that the Lord he is God_.[4] And again, _A great King above all gods_.
Moreover, the mystical elevations and the ecstasies of the Saints were acts
of the love of God in which they wished Him all good and rejoiced in His
possessing it. Our imagination, too, may help us, as it did St. Augustine,
of whom our Blessed Father writes:
"This desire, then, of God, by imagination of impossibilities, may be
sometimes profitably practised in moments of great and extraordinary
feelings and fervours. We are told that the great St. Augustine often made
such acts, pouring out in an excess of love these words: 'Ah! Lord, I am
Augustine, and Thou art God; but still, if that which neither is nor can be
were, that I were God, and thou Augustine, I would, changing my condition
with Thee, become Augustine to the end that Thou mightest be God.'"[5]
We can again wish Him the same good by rejoicing in the knowledge that we
could never, even by desiring it, add anything to the incomprehensible
infinity and infinite incomprehensibility of His greatness and perfection.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy
glory: Praise to God in the highest. Amen.
[Footnote 1: Psalm xxxiii. 4.]
[Footnote 2: Psalm cxviii. 139.]
[Footnote 3: Psalm lxviii. 10.]
[Footnote 4: Psalm xciv. 3.]
[Footnote 5: Book v. c. 6.]