In his writings, Eugene’s affective nature often expresses itself. It was essential for him to have warm friendships. He always saw this as a God-given gift, and found as his model Jesus himself, who had close friendships in the Gospel.
Were I to heed myself, I now have had my fill of Rome; I cannot accustom myself to live in separation from those I love, I have no pleasure away from them. Oh! how happy we will be in heaven when we are all there together! Then there will be no more journeys, no more separation and although absorbed in God we will love our friends more than ever.
His intuitive vision of God did not prevent Jesus Christ from loving people, and amongst them, some more than others. That is how it is, however it pleases refined mystics to wish to give us, for the sake of perfection, another nature which assuredly would not be worth that which we have from God.
So much so that there is no happiness for me, separated from those who are mine!
Letter to Henri Tempier, 9 December 1825, EO VI n 211
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.” 1 John 4:11-12
We love who we love. I think the secret is not in how much love we are given but in how much love we give. I am not sure that God loves me any more than he does another. God loves me exactly as much as I have been created to be loved and that is greatly. But it’s taken me a long time to allow God to stop having to prove how much he loves me and if it’s more than what another gets!
I think the secret too might be in how much we allow ourselves to love. If we don’t get caught up in measuring and what it might “look like”, if we simply love. For some reason I am thinking of Mary of Magdalene this morning. Her love for Jesus was not measured, not nice and quiet and polished (more like wild and abandoned in some ways), as I picture her there on the ground kissing the feet of Jesus and anointing his feet she didn’t appear to be feeling his love was any less than or greater than, she was loved and was loving with all that she was.
When we allow ourselves to be filled with God’s love there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of room left for measuring how much there is. When we allow ourselves to love in return, we love as we do. Do I love some more than others, yes I guess I do. But it never lessens how much I love anyone. I doubt that I will ever be able to love “perfectly”, at least in this life time. Eugene loved so greatly, he truly gave his all. There is a gift in there, in how he loved and was loved, in how we are loved and how we love.
Tonight I will gather and meet with a group who I love incredibly much. At that time and in those moments I will love them more than any other for they are among those that I love the most.