Amoris fervens desiderium. Beneficiorum Dei recapitulatio.
The Soul's Burning Love for God
The soul declares its ardent love for God, renouncing all lesser loves and affirming that God loved first.
I love you, my God, and I want to love you more and more, because you are truly sweeter than any honey, more nourishing than any milk, and brighter than any light. That is why you are more precious to me than all gold and silver and every precious stone. Whatever I was doing in the world was distasteful to me, because of your sweetness and the beauty of your house, which I have loved. O fire that always burns and is never put out, O love that stays fervent and never grows lukewarm, charity, my God, set me ablaze. Set me ablaze, I say — all of me — so that I may love you alone with my whole self. Those who love something else along with you, but not because of you, love you less. I will love you, Lord, because you loved me first. 1 John 4:10.
Recounting God's Endless Benefits
The soul marvels at God's innumerable gifts, from creation in His image to tender nurture and the gift of all creation for service.
And where do I find the words to unfold the signs of your love toward me, especially, on account of your innumerable benefits, by which you have raised me from the beginning? After the benefit of creation itself — when in the beginning you created me from nothing in your image, honoring and exalting me among those creatures you had made, and ennobling me with the light of your countenance, by which you marked the doorpost of my heart, by which you set me apart from creatures both insensible and mere brutes, and made me a little lower than the angels (Psal.✦✦✦ VIII, 6).✦ This was too little in the sight of your goodness, for with daily, special, and greatest gifts of your benefits you nourished me without ceasing, and like a tender little son of yours you nursed me at the breasts of your consolation and strengthened me.✦✦ For in order that I might serve you wholly, you handed over all things whatever you had made into my service.✦
Read the original Latin
Amo te, Deus meus, magisque semper amare cupio, quia tu es revera omni melle dulcior, omni lacte nutribilior, et omni luce clarior. Idcirco super omne aurum et argentum et lapidem pretiosum es mihi charior. Displicebat enim mihi quidquid agebam in saeculo prae dulcedine tua, et decore domus tuae, quam dilexi. O ignis qui semper ardes et nunquam exstingueris, o amor qui semper ferves et nunquam tepescis, charitas Deus meus, accende me. Accende, inquam, totum me, ut totus diligam solum te. Minus enim te amat, qui tecum aliquid amat quod non propter te amat. Diligam te, Domine, quoniam tu prior dilexisti me (I Joan. IV, 10).
Et unde mihi verbum, ut explicem signa dilectionis tuae, maxime erga me, propter innumera beneficia tua, quibus a principio educasti me? Post beneficium nempe creationis, quando in principio de nihilo ad imaginem tuam creasti me, honorificans et exaltans me inter eas creaturas quas fecisti, et nobilitans lumine vultus tui, quo signasti superliminare cordis mei, quo ab insensibilibus pariter et sensibilibus brutis discrevisti me, et paulo minus ab angelis minuisti (Psal. VIII, 6). Parum hoc fuit ante conspectum bonitatis tuae, quoniam quotidianis et singularibus maximisque donariis tuorum beneficiorum me sine intermissione nutrivisti, et quasi filium tuum parvulum tenellum uberibus tuae consolationis lactasti et confortasti me. Ut enim tibi totus servirem, omnia quaecumque fecisti, in meum servitium tradidisti.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.8.6 — You have made him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory and honor.
- ↩Gen.1.26-Gen.1.27 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
- ↩Exod.12.7 — They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
- ↩Ps.8.6 — You have made him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory and honor.
- ↩Isa.66.13 — As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you, and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted.
- ↩1Thess.2.7 — but we became infants among you, as when a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children
- ↩Ps.8.7-Ps.8.8 — You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet— Ps.8.8 — the flocks and the herds—all of them—and also the beasts of the field
Pseudo-Augustine Soliloquia animae ad Deum (Meditations of the Soul to God) companion
A meditation like this, every morning
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