School of St. Philip Neri - On the Love of God

Schola Christi, The Oratory Lecture Series and Homilies from The Pittsburgh Oratory

Desire for God, a longing for Him and His love, is at the heart of the spiritual life. To desire means to have a clear sense of lack and incompleteness. It drives us on in the pursuit of God's love and the pursuit of perfection. The more we desire God, the more we desire to please Him. Lack of desire reveals a lack of love and leads to mediocrity.
St. Philip burned with the love quite literally - his heart inflamed by the Spirit of love beat so loudly that it shook the room and when he drew others to his breast they were immediately consoled by the warmth of its love.
Philip's profound wish was that others might be set ablaze - consumed and inflamed by this Divine love. We must not be lukewarm but rather yearn for the sanctity and perfection of the saints to be made manifest in our lives and actions. We must never measure ourselves according to our own judgment by always according to the Divine standard: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." We must seek and be driven in the pursuit of this command; despite our weakness constantly striving for holiness and ceaseless praying for the grace that is needed to attain it. So ardent must this desire become that it should even steal sleep from us - our hearts longing for what God alone can satisfy. And like so many of the saints, Philip saw the measure of one's love for God as revealed in the desire to suffer for Him.
The love of God, which is the foundation and root of all virtues, was found in such a pre-eminent degree in Saint Philip that the flame which consumed his soul was visible even in his body, so that sometimes, when he was saying Office, or after any other spiritual act, sparks of fire were seen to issue from his face and eyes. He desired that the hearts of others should also be inflamed with this Divine love, and sometimes expressed such wishes as these: "May Saint Anthony's fire burn you!" by which he meant to express a wish that the person, like St. Anthony, might glow with Divine love.
F. Giulio Savioli, since he was inflamed by this heavenly fire, desired that all others would glow with the same Divine love. This is what he meant by saying, when he went to St. Peter's, where he frequently went, "When, when shall I see this great palace burning? Fire! fire!" The holy Master said to others, "May you be killed," that is, for the faith, by means of holy martyrdom.
So great was the progress made in the love of God in the School of St. Philip that even some members of the external Oratory were inflamed by it. Martin Altieri, a Roman nobleman, one of St. Philip's children, like another Moses, could not speak of God from the overflowing of this love.
In exciting ourselves to this holy love, it will be useful to reflect that our holy Father, though rich in merit, when he saw young persons, considering that they had time to do good, used to say, "Happy are you who have time to do good, which I have not done."
Let us first endeavor ever to have fixed in our mind that maxim of the saint, the repetition of which can never be superfluous, that "Whatever love is given to creatures, is so much taken from God," and let us practice the instructions given us on the subject by the holy Master, which are as follows:
"Desire to do great things for God's service, and not be content with mediocrity in goodness, but wish to surpass even Saint Peter and Saint Paul in sanctity, though it may be unattainable, ought to be desired, since we may, at least in desire, perform what we cannot do in fact. Never be contented with any degree of perfection to which you may have attained, for the pattern which Christ places before our eyes is the Eternal Father Himself, 'Be thou therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.' No one must ever imagine that he has done any good." The holy Father himself, thought ladened with merits, when he confessed, was wont to say with abundance of tears, "I have never done any good."
We must thoroughly bear in mind what the Saint said, that perfection cannot be acquired without great labor; therefore, in the ways of God, we must always urge ourselves from good to better.
To obtain from God his holy love, the following ejaculations of Saint Philip should be familiar to us. "When shall I love Thee with a filial love? O Jesus, be to me Jesus: I do not love Thee. O may Lord, grant me grace to love Thee, not from fear, but from love. O my Jesus, I desire to love Thee. I have never loved Thee, but I desire to love Thee, O my Jesus. I shall never love Thee, except Thou help me, O my Jesus. O my Jesus, I desire to love Thee, but I know not how."
F. Pietro Consoling was also in the habit of asking for Divine love by ejaculatory prayer. He frequently implored it by the following ejaculations. "Wound my soul with a greater love of Thee. Strike my hard should with the love of Thee. Create a clean heart in me, O Lord. O Lord Jesus, by the most Sacred mystery of Thy Body, and by They five wounds, from which the Blood which Thou has shed for me didst flow, have mercy on according as Thou knows my necessities of soul and body. Receive me according to Thy word, that I may live, and disappoint not my hope, but take pity on me, O my mercy." This he uttered with the most ardent emotion, when the Sacred Host was elevated by the celebrant; and this, "Thou art my help and my refuge. O my God, I will hope in Thee."
Whoever wishes for a sign whether he be advanced in the love of God, may find one given by the holy Father Philip in these words: "When a soul is truly enamored of God, it cannot sleep at night, but passes the time in tears and sighs and tender affections, and is constrained to say, "O Lord, suffer me to sleep."
He, indeed, often experienced this for frequently, when contemplating God, he was unable to sleep, "and," adds the holy Master, "the greatness of our love of God is known by the desire we have to suffer for Him." From this desire a person may take the measure of his love of God. If the desire to suffer much be very great, the love is great; if little, it is little; and if there be no such desire, then, according to the maxim of Saint Philip, there will be no love.
The School of Saint Philip Neri by Giuseppe Crispino
Additional Materials for discussion:
BENEDICT XVI

GENERAL AUDIENCE

Saint Peter's SquareWednesday, 7 November 2012

The Year of Faith. The desire for God.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The journey of reflection that we are making together during this Year of Faith leads us to meditate today on a fascinating aspect of the human and the Christian experience: man carries within himself a mysterious desire for God. In a very significant way, the Catechism of the Catholic Church opens precisely with the following consideration: “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for” (n. 27).

A statement like this, that even today in many cultural contexts seems quite acceptable, even obvious, might, however, be taken as a provocation in the West’s secularized culture. Many of our contemporaries might actually object that they have no such desire for God. For large sectors of society he is no longer the one longed for or desired but rather a reality that leaves them indifferent, one on which there is no need even to comment. In reality, what we have defined as “the desire for God” has not entirely disappeared and it still appears today, in many ways, in the heart of man. Human desire always tends to certain concrete goods, often anything but spiritual, and yet it has to face the question of what is truly “the” good, and thus is confronted with something other than itself, something man cannot build but he is called to recognize. What can really satisfy man’s desire?

In my first Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, I sought to analyze how such dynamism can be found in the experience of human love, an experience that in our age is more easily perceived as a moment of ecstasy, of leaving oneself, like a place in which man feels overcome by a desire that surpasses him. Through love, a man and a woman experience in a new way, thanks to each other, the greatness and beauty of life and of what is real. If what is experienced is not a mere illusion, if I truly want the good of the other as a means for my own good, then I must be willing not to be self-centred, to place myself at the other’s service, even to the point of self-denial. The answer to the question on the meaning of the experience of love then passes through the purification and healing of the will, required in loving the other. We must cultivate, encourage, and also correct ourselves, so that this good can truly be loved.

Thus the initial ecstasy becomes a pilgrimage, “an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, n. 6). Through this journey one will be able to deepen gradually one’s knowledge of that love, initially experienced. And the mystery that it represents will become more and more defined: in fact, not even the beloved is capable of satisfying the desire that dwells in the human heart. In fact, the more authentic one’s love for the other is, the more it reveals the question of its origin and its destiny, of the possibility that it may endure for ever. Therefore, the human experience of love has in itself a dynamism that refers beyond the self, it is the experience of a good that leads to being drawn out and finding oneself before the mystery that encompasses the whole of existence.

One could make similar observation about other human experiences as well, such as friendship, encountering beauty, loving knowledge: every good experienced by man projects him toward the mystery that surrounds the human being; every desire that springs up in the human heart echoes a fundamental desire that is never fully satisfied. Undoubtedly by such a deep desire, hidden, even enigmatic, one cannot arrive directly at faith. Men and women, after all, know well what does not satisfy them, but they cannot imagine or define what the happiness they long for in their hearts would be like. One cannot know God based on human desire alone. From this point of view he remains a mystery: man is the seeker of the Absolute, seeking with small and hesitant steps. And yet, already the experience of desire, of a “restless heart” as St Augustine called it, is very meaningful. It tells us that man is, deep down, a religious being (cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 28), a “beggar of God”. We can say with the words of Pascal: “Man infinitely surpasses man” (Pensées, ed. Chevalier 438; ed. Brunschvicg 434). Eyes recognize things when they are illuminated. From this comes a desire to know the light itself, what makes the things of the world shine and with them ignites the sense of beauty.

We must therefore maintain that it is possible also in this age, seemingly so blocked to the transcendent dimension, to begin a journey toward the true religious meaning of life, that shows how the gift of faith is not senseless, is not irrational. It would be very useful, to that end, to foster a kind of pedagogy of desire, both for the journey of one who does not yet believe and for the one who has already received the gift of faith. It should be a pedagogy that covers at least two aspects. In the first place, to discover or rediscover the taste of the authentic joy of life. Not all satisfactions have the same effect on us: some leave a positive after-taste, able to calm the soul and make us more active and generous. Others, however, after the initial delight, seem to disappoint the expectations that they had awakened and sometimes leave behind them a sense of bitterness, dissatisfaction or emptiness. Instilling in someone from a young age the taste for true joy, in every area of life – family, friendship, solidarity with those who suffer, self-renunciation for the sake of the other, love of knowledge, art, the beauty of nature — all this means exercising the inner taste and producing antibodies that can fight the trivialization and the dulling widespread today. Adults too need to rediscover this joy, to desire authenticity, to purify themselves of the mediocrity that might infest them. It will then become easier to drop or reject everything that although attractive proves to be, in fact, insipid, a source of indifference and not of freedom. And this will bring out that desire for God of which we are speaking.

A second aspect that goes hand in hand with the preceding one is never to be content with what you have achieved. It is precisely the truest joy that unleashes in us the healthy restlessness that leads us to be more demanding — to want a higher good, a deeper good — and at the same time to perceive ever more clearly that no finite thing can fill our heart. In this way we will learn to strive, unarmed, for the good that we cannot build or attain by our own power; and we will learn to not be discouraged by the difficulty or the obstacles that come from our sin.

In this regard, we must not forget that the dynamism of desire is always open to redemption. Even when it strays from the path, when it follows artificial paradises and seems to lose the capacity of yearning for the true good. Even in the abyss of sin, that ember is never fully extinguished in man. It allows him to recognize the true good, to savour it, and thus to start out again on a path of ascent; God, by the gift of his grace, never denies man his help. We all, moreover, need to set out on the path of purification and healing of desire. We are pilgrims, heading for the heavenly homeland, toward that full and eternal good that nothing will be able to take away from us. This is not, then, about suffocating the longing that dwells in the heart of man, but about freeing it, so that it can reach its true height. When in desire one opens the window to God, this is already a sign of the presence of faith in the soul, faith that is a grace of God. St Augustine always says: “so God, by deferring our hope, stretched our desire; by the desiring, stretches the mind; by stretching, makes it more capacious” (Commentary on the First Letter of John, 4,6: PL 35, 2009).

On this pilgrimage, let us feel like brothers and sisters of all men, travelling companions even of those who do not believe, of those who are seeking, of those who are sincerely wondering about the dynamism of their own aspiration for the true and the good. Let us pray, in this Year of Faith, that God may show his face to all those who seek him with a sincere heart. Thank you.