Primacy of the Love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus--Osuna

“Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Thecua, and set up the standard over Bethacarem: for evil is seen out of the north, and a great destruction. I have likened the daughter of Sion to a beautiful and delicate woman. The shepherds shall come to her with their flocks: they have pitched their tents against her round about: every one shall feed them that are under his hand. Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at midday.” (Jer. 6:1-4)

Bethacarem means “house of their lamb,” and it is the house of Israel from which the Lamb of God went out, which had come to save the sheep which had died there; and because Christ was signally sent to this people of Israel, the Holy Spirit says to first put the flag of His love over it, to remedy the evil which comes from aquilon, which is a northeast wind, cold and sharp, which does much harm, and has the shape of the chilling of charity, which brought Christ from heaven to the earth for its remedy; since you should know that just as at the second advent, which will be at the judgment, the charity of many will be chilly, so it was in the first advent, and it was for this that the Lord was born at midnight and in the middle of winter, with ice, which signified the chilling of charity which there was in those times, which Christ came to remedy. So it is written that the boy was born very lively, chosen among thousands, to remedy the lack of love, later beginning to shed blood, which is a very warm liquid; and later when he began to preach, he chided the lack of love, and in this way hoisted the flag of charity over the house of Israel and began to fight the battle of love in the first way, by flatteries and rewards, doing favors and graces to all; and for this reason the prophet compared this holy soul of Christ to the beautiful woman and the refined daughter of Zion; to which, because of her graciousness, the shepherds with their flocks were to come, who are the apostles, with the provinces of the world, which, while Christ lived, they converted to Him.

“Shepherds” in Hebrew means (according to The Gloss) either pastors of lovers; which is very fitting for the apostles, who for Christ, the standard of love, where made lovers of the Holy Spirit, Who gave Him the flag. And I say that they were made His lovers: on the one hand, because the thing which Christ most preached to the apostles was love; and on the other hand, because, telling them many and very great things about the Holy Spirit, He enamored them of Him; and, therefore, the apostles set up their tabernacles around Christ, living and being, and remaining with Him all their lives, and they sanctified the battle of love with much holiness with which they sought to better love, and they desired to ascend to the midday of glory with the wife, where love is in its highest fervor, where the divine sun infuses the most ardent rays to perpetually ignite the loves. The greatest consolation which the most blessed soul of Christ received in this world, was to see that the number of the lovers of God multiplied, and in this he was consoled and was favored as the Standard when he sees that many fighters arrive at his flag; and, therefore, the Canticle (Canticle of Canticles 2:5-6) said that they should garland it with flowers and surround it with apples, because He was sick in love. The flowers which appeared in the land of the Church at that time were new lovers of God which came to join Christ; and the apples, which are of more substance, were those who were more advanced in love, with which the Standard of love was more pleased. Furthermore, it says that the left hand of His beloved the Holy Spirit is under His head, because Christ rested in the love of neighbor, symbolized by the left hand, and night and day he exercised all of his senses in it. And, in Christ, the left hand is called love of neighbor, not because there is anything sinister in it, but rather that this most perfect love of neighbor which He had, made him suffer many human evils and disasters and countless fatigues; but the Holy Spirit put them under his head, giving Him rest in them, because total love, when it works for the beloved, rests.

The right hand of the Holy Spirit, which embraced the soul of Christ, was the love of God, which was in Him at the sovereign level at which it now is; and because the love of God was exposed the way that the “possessors” of heaven have it, it says that it embraces Him; because, when we embrace someone with an arm, we make the hand return to that from which it came, which is our own body, and make a full circuit around; and in this way the love which the soul of Christ had for God, made the full circle, which is the most fitting image which goes back to its beginning, because that most sacred soul upon leaving from God by creation, turned back to Him by love with greater breadth of heart, in order better to love, than could be said: and the love of God embraced her (His soul), later turning her to Himself, without making it wait in hope as to the other souls; and because the soul cannot embrace God without being embraced by God, nor God perfectly embrace the soul without being embraced by her; because love which is not corresponded is not perfect love.

In the words said above from the Canticle of Canticles you should notice four grades of supreme love; the first is a complete drunkenness which this most blessed soul reached entering the cellar of love, where there are as many ways of love as there are of wines, and all the conditions of wine you will find in love. The second grade is the prison with which the lover gives himself over in the soul and takes complete jurisdiction over her so that no other love may any more have any place, nor may the soul know any other Lord, except that one that has her captive by violent charity. The third grade of love is the sickness that the love itself causes by the vehement desire and fervor to look for lovers that they may help it to love the One Who has her totally captive. The last and final grade of love is laziness within the arms of the Lover, which is reached after many toils and after the consummatum est, when it finally says (Luke 23:46) In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum. Then Jesus the great Lover rested within the arms of His Beloved, which were open awaiting His soul for it to rest from the toilsome love of our redemption, leaving the flag of love stained with His blood, which is the Cross, so that all of the warriors that would fix themselves to it should wait while the true Lover, conquering Himself unto death, conquers the Beloved, and all of the victory which He achieves is itself an obligation which He puts on the one for whom he conquered Himself.

So it is that while we see the flag of love stained with the blood of Jesus Christ, it remains for us, as persons obligated and defeated by such strong love, to open our hearts to also shed our blood in the battle field of love.

Ley de amor santo, c. XIII, Francisco de Osuna