From a sermon by St. Bernard, abbot:
Love
is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of
itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause
outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its
practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great
thing so long as it continually
returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing
from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the
movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in
which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of
similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he
desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be
loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their
love of him.
The
Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in
return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return.
Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that
Love not be loved?
Rightly then does she give up all other
feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back,
all she can do is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her
whole being in love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing
torrent of that original source? Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word,
bride and Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same
volume; one might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.
What
then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her
confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match
stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey
for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as white as
the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal
in love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves
less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing
is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to
share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally
loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and
total marriage consists. Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by
the Word first and with a greater love? (http://www.universalis.com/20120820/readings.htm)
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