The following excerpt is taken from St. Francis de Sales' book, On the Love of God.
Why
do hounds, think you, Theotimus, more ordinarily lose the scent or strain of
their quarry in the spring-time than at other times?
It
is, as hunters and philosophers say, because the grass and flowers are then in
their vigour, so that the variety of smells which they send out so fills the
hounds' sense of smelling that they can neither take nor follow the scent of
their game, among so many scents which the earth exhales.
In
sooth those souls that ever abound in desires, designs and projects, never
desire holy celestial love as they ought, nor can perceive the delightful
strain and scent of the divine beloved, who is compared to the roe, and to the
little fawn of the doe.
Lilies
have no season, but flower soon or late, as they are deeper or less deep set in
the ground: for if they be thrust three fingers only into the earth they will
presently blossom, but if they be put six or nine, they come up proportionately
later. If the heart that aims after Divine love be deeply engaged in terrene
and temporal affairs, it will bud late and with difficulty; but if it have only
so much to do with the world as its condition requires, you shall see it bloom
timely in love, and send out a delicious odour.
For
this cause the Saints betook themselves to deserts, that being freed from
worldly cares they might more ardently apply to heavenly love. For this the
spouse shut one of her eyes, to the end that she might keep the sight of the
other alone more fixedly, and thereby take better aim at the very midst of her
beloved's heart, which she desires to wound with love. And for this same reason
she keeps her hair so plaited and gathered up in a tress that she seems to have
one only hair which she makes use of as a chain, to bind and bear away her
spouse's heart, whom she makes a slave to her love.
They
who desire for good and all to love God, shut up their understanding from
discoursing of worldly things, to employ it more earnestly in the meditation of
divine things, and gather up all their pretensions under the sole intention
which they have of loving only God. Whosoever desires something which he
desires not for God that much less desires God.
A
religious man demanded of the Blessed Giles what he could do most grateful to
God; and he answered him by singing: "One to one, one to one;" that
is, one only soul to one only God. So many desires and loves in a heart are
like many children at one breast, who, as they cannot all suck at once, struggle
each one for his turn, so that at last the fount dries up. He who aspires to
heavenly love, must sedulously reserve for it his leisure, his spirit and his
affections.
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