CHAPTER X.
LOVE OF GOD.
The Love of God is the perfection of the interior life. It is this which unites the soul with God, and the more intense it is, the closer is the union and the greater the consequent perfection. It is the crown and, consummation of all the virtues. Where it exists we shall, as a matter of consequence, find all the other virtues; and to describe it is implicitly to portray them all. Hence, when we shall have treated of St. Bonaventure's love for God, we shall consider ourselves absolved from the necessity of discussing his other virtues, especially as there is such a scarcity of data to lay under contribution. And even concerning the virtue under consideration, we must be content with reviewing the Saint's teaching upon it.
The Papal Envoy presenting St. Bonaventure with the Cardinal's hat.]
None realized better than Bonaventure the supremacy of charity. "Charity alone," he writes, [Footnote 33] "renders us pleasing to God. Of all the virtues charity alone makes its possessor wealthy and blessed. If it is absent, in vain are all the other virtues present; if only it be present, all is present--for whoso possesses it possesses the Holy Ghost. If virtue constitute the blessed life--virtue, I should add, is nothing else but the highest love of God." Since charity is so excellent it must be insisted upon beyond all the other virtues. Nor ought any kind of charity to be considered sufficient but that alone by which we love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves for God's sake. The Saint insists, particularly, on the exclusive nature of the love of God. No interest in creatures and no affection for them should be allowed to interfere with it. "We should love God," he says, "with the whole heart, the whole mind and the whole soul. To love anything not in God and for God is to be wanting in His love." He quotes with approval the remarkable utterance of St. Augustine: "He loveth Thee less, O Lord! who loveth anything along with Thee which he does not love because of Thee". He assigns as the proof of perfect love willingness to lay down one's life for God: "We love God with our whole soul when for the love of Jesus Christ we freely expose ourselves to death [{76}] when circumstances demand it. To love God with our whole mind is to be ever mindful of Him, to love Him unceasingly and without forgetfulness or neglect." Such is the substance of Bonaventure's general teachings on charity.
[Footnote 33: "Opera Omnia," Tom. VIII, "De Perfectione Vitae," Cap. VII, p. 124.]
Elsewhere in his treatise, "The Triple Way, or the Fire of Love," he treats of the subject more in detail. He writes, no doubt, from the fulness of his heart and describes, the love which dominated his own soul. He distinguishes [Footnote 34] six stages or degrees of perfect charity.