Doctrine of pure love in Lorenzo da Parigi

PART FOUR

EXPANSION AND INCULTURATION

SECTION ONE

II

DOCTRINE OF PURE LOVE IN LORENZO DA PARIGI

a work of

OPTATUS VAN ASSELDONK

2

from I Frati Cappuccini, a work of Costanzo Cargnoni, Edizioni Frate Indovino, Perugia, 1992, volume IV, pages 211-236.

Translated by Lam Vu OFM Cap

The original text can be found here

Table of Contents

Lorenzo da Parigi († 1631), who entered the Order in 1581 and trained under Giuliano da Camerino and Girolamo da Castelferretti, both from the Province of Marche, is the author of two books: Le Palais de l’amour divin, Paris 1602 (other editions Paris 1603 and 1614, the latter much expanded). The book was in circulation, in manuscript, even before being printed, since 1599. His other work bears the title: Les tapisseries du divin amour, Paris 1631.

In the dedication of his main book, Le Palais, to the Queen of France, Caterina Maria de’ Medici, foundress-protector of the French Capuchins, the author invokes a special blessing on her from Our Lady, who is named with the titles ‘Daughter of the Father, Bride of the Holy Spirit, Mother of the Son God-Man’: ‘en qui Dieu Trine Un a planté le guidon de son très-pur amour’, in which the Triune and One God has planted the banner of His most pure love.

Lorenzo’s doctrine differs from that of Benet of Canfield more in appearance than in reality. Instead of the will of God he takes the theme of pure love as the centre and summit of perfection. La Règle and Le Palais basically meet in the doctrine of the one pure intention of the will or love of God, or the glory and presence of God, as Lorenzo does especially in the 1614 edition. In fact, under these different forms they teach the one love that is God or the charity that is God, or God alone, the only Good as the only motive of all the spiritual life of man.

In this synthesis all the French and Belgian-Flemish mystical authors agree, and in this way, they implicitly reach the vital inspiration of Francis’ whole life, already received before his definitive and total conversion, that is, the decisive motive: for the love of God, in the charity that is God.[1]

Lorenzo da Parigi appears to be the first French author to expressly base his mystical doctrine on Chapters 5 and 10 of the Regula Bullata, that is, on the search for the Spirit of the Lord and His holy operation, to which all things must serve, being the end of all exercises.

Source: Laurent de Paris, Le Palais d’amour divin de Jésus et de l’âme chrestienne, Paris 1602, ff. 12v-15r (n. 1), 159r-161v (n. 2), 596v-600r (n. 3), 602v-603r (n. 4). — Fundamental bibliography: Optat de Veghel, Benoît de Canfield, 394-399; id., Frères Mineurs, in Dict. Spir. V, Paris 1962-1964, 1372s; M. Dubois-Quinard, Laurent de Paris. Une doctrine du pur amour en France au débout du 17e siècle, Rome 1959; id., Laurent de Paris, in Dict. Spir. IX, Paris 1976, 406-415 (the author’s evidence is not always convincing); Kent Emery, Mysticism and the coincidence of opposites in sixteenth and seventeenth-century France, in Journal of the History of Ideas (1984) 3-23 (he speaks especially of Benet of Canfield and Lorenzo da Parigi).

1. Above all, desire to have the Spirit of the Lord and His holy operation, the aim of all exercises

9222 Now all these good qualities, which are nothing but effects or acts of perfection, which however, deriving from us, are not immune from self-love, since it is very difficult for there where the wayfarer, the man – I say – who is in this world, formally acts, in his operation of love is excluded of all self-interest. But when it pleases God to make our spirit His instrument and to absorb it into Himself for His holy inaction or intimate operation, measuring itself in Him and working in Him that he pleases, without our spirit then mixing with these proprietary acts, then imperfection ceases and perfection reigns there.

Then our spirit, truly seized and conquered by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, as the Apostle[2] says, is found in His perfection, from the moment that the great operator, whose actions are perfect, has placed His hand on it.

9223 In any case, it is not that our boldness of spirit or free application and adhesion of love do not contribute to it, since we are living and voluntary instruments of God. Only this collaboration is rather a [13r] simple abandonment to another who carries it, it is a pure consent from the depths of our spirit consigned to God intimately with a certain suffering and pure passivity of the holy operation of infinite love in the climax of the spirit, centre and depth of the essence of the soul given over to God, abandoned at the mercy of the Holy Spirit, reclining in the arms of Jesus Christ, to make of us, in us or for us, at His pleasure, nothing other than an act of love then sensibly and perceptibly formed towards God, as would be an offering made actually to God, or an aspiration and a desire for union.

9224 But just as it happens[3] when a child desires to be held in the arms of his father, who takes him, lifts him up and presses him to his heart, and the child thus allows himself to be held, without contributing anything other than his initial desire and subsequent consent, so imagine the same thing that happens between this sweet Heavenly Father and the loving spirit.

How truly blessed is the soul to which this is granted, happy to find itself at such a sumptuous banquet, served with such exquisite food and drink! And still blessed to find itself introduced into the cellar of this supreme King, inebriated by this wine of delights, wine of love, exquisite [13v] and most delicious with the blessed happiness enjoyed by the blessed inhabitants of this palace of glory!

In the same way, then, that there is a difference between divine and human action, so there is a difference between the above-mentioned acts, called perfection by some, and this essential perfection that we now intend to trace in its first aspects. Therefore, the Apostle says: Quotquot perfecti sumus, hoc sentiamus; for us to be as perfect, we must have these sentiments.[4]

It is not by chance that Father Saint Francis in his Rule recommends to his brothers that they should bear in mind that they must desire above all things to have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and his holy operation[5]; to this Spirit (he says again elsewhere) all things must serve[6] as the ultimate goal of every exercise.

9225 Let no one, therefore, puff himself up and believe himself to be perfect when he practices humility or self-loathing or resignation and similar virtues, because when we practice these virtues in order to block some passion that has suddenly awakened in us, it means that we are still far from the goal and that the holy habits have not yet acquired their strength and have not [14r] taken root inwardly and therefore we have not yet immersed ourselves through excessive love in that deep sea of divinity.

However, no one should give in to pusillanimity of spirit and discouragement in seeing such sublime perfection; rather, let him recognise himself as unworthy and incapable of acquiring such a rare pearl. Let this, I say, not cause you to lose heart, O soul!, to the point of neglecting the good exercises begun: that would be an enormous deception of Satan and an extreme indolence of your sincerity.[7]

In what true perfection consists. Chap. 5

9226 So if true perfection is not placed in an act of man, whether external or internal, what must your spirit, or soul, now think, if not to remain suspended in a problem and question to search and know where it is hidden, in what place would this precious pearl of wisdom be found, to acquire which it is necessary to sell everything, or rather, I would say better, to give everything, that is, to lose everything?

I will not [14v] this out any longer, but I will say briefly and answer in a few words.

God alone, since He is perfection in Himself and for Himself, abstract, beyond every kind, all pure, infinite, a gushing source of sovereign bliss from which nothing can lack nor be added or taken away, alone subsistent in Himself and more than sufficient and in infinite measure to all creatures, and since the rational creature is made and created capable of this great good, then the latter will be satiated, contented, complete and perfect when it finds itself filled and overflowing with this super-essential perfection which is God. In this possession and fruition God gives it the gift of tasting in the very source of sweetness, that is, in Himself, all that is sweet and gentle.[8]

9227 O soul, then, more than noble, your sovereign and eminent perfection is and is found in the possession and blessed fruition of this supreme, infinite and perfect Good. When you are united to this ultimate end, when your spirit is joined and united with this God of all spirits, when you are transformed from splendour to splendour,[9] all one spirit, that is, one action, one and the same love, one identical beatitude and happiness with Him, then you will be in peace, as a Church Father says: “Lord God, You have made us for You and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”[10]

Consequently, you will be one and the same perfection with Him, another Himself in operating, another God as to the actual operating being, in whom the perfection of the creature consists, as the masters of scholastic theology say […].

2. The motive for everything is the unique and pure love of Jesus

9228 Of all the principal ornaments and means that lead the soul to divine union and transformation, the principal, sole, and only exercise and the first means of reaching it is love, conditioned by an ardent desire in the will, although others, to be modern, without solid foundation and authority have wanted to assign other titles to disguise their evidence.

Who does not see that all creatures, insensible and irrational, rational and intellectual in their actions are drawn by the weight of love? Ponderibus suis aguntur omnia (says St. Augustine): Levia sursure, gravia deorsum. Amor meus pondus meum, eo feror quocumque feror; all things are drawn by their weight, the light at the top, the heavy at the bottom. My weight is my love: by it I am drawn, wherever I am drawn,[11] because all things are carried in their action by the consideration and love of an end, of a stillness and happiness to which they aspire. Therefore, the sole object of the soul in all its motions must be the pure and true love of Jesus alone, to whom alone it must look and thus seek to imitate Him in a perfect way, and through Him it must accomplish all the other Christian perfections, such as introversion, self-denial, the will of God, the virtues, contemplation and the like.

9229 The form, therefore, the motivation, the final and objective reason for all human instincts, appetites, movements, discourses and actions, interior and exterior, natural and voluntary, corporal and spiritual, can only be the simple love of God and all His operations, the reciprocal love toward God as being more proportionate both to the lover and to the beloved because of the divine ordering that has placed in everything and especially in the rational soul a natural inclination and love to unite with God as its ultimate end. And it is for this reason that love is the foot of the soul, by which it tends to God, as Father St. Augustine himself says,[12] and so we are also called travellers, made so by love springing from living faith, we tend toward God.

It is also for this reason that the Apostle established love as the most excellent way, the most eminent grace and means of perfection, the end of precept, the fullness of the law, the perfect bond, the chain [160r] of perfection, and the greatest and most precious of the theological virtues, but also the most universal because it includes all the virtues, called by the Apostle himself with the title of charity, which he defines as the best divine anointing and chrism among all the divine and gratuitous influences.[13]

9230 But all this would still be little, if God Himself had not recommended to us the exercise of the soul by the term of love, having Himself called and named by His beloved disciple with this same name of love: “God is charity,” thus He says, “and he who abides in charity abides in God and God in him.”[14] Only love transforms the lover into the beloved and consequently beatifies him.[15] Only excessive love produces ecstasy, says St. Dionysius.[16] God asks nothing of man but to be loved; He does not command him except to love Him with all and above all that he is: this is the greatest commandment of the law[17] and therefore the greatest and most eminent[18] means of going to and arriving to God.

This is affirmed and reiterated because love is the practice, motive and the very means that God used to confer upon us [160v] His holy goods in order to teach us the true spiritual exercises, because in loving us excessively He transmitted to us as a gift the example and the subject to do the same, as the Apostle says: “Propter nimiam charitatem suam qua dilexit nos, because of the excessive love on His part with which He loved us”[19]; and as He Himself revealed it to Nicodemus: “Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret, God indeed so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”[20] And does He not say elsewhere, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will also love him and manifest myself to him?”[21]

9231 If, then, the burden of creatures is love, if the goal of our being and what God requires of us is love, if the sublime and most universal way to tend to God is love, if the organism and structure of the spiritual life taught by God and the Apostles is always love; if God has given Himself as an example for loving His love, and if we have no other more appropriate and immediate means of being united with God, taught to us by the Apostles, the saints, the Doctors, the contemplatives, and Scripture [161r], what is the meaning of this presumption and Huguenot heresy, to place salvation in faith alone and not in love? How is it that others, though loving, are silent only about the exercise of love? Perhaps because they propose to you another object other than love, whose efficacious force and attraction (well-learned and become habit in the soul), induces this and draws it to do or reject what needs to be done, accepted or rejected?

Let us not distance ourselves from the rule of God and the saints, practiced in every age and always taught, but let us shake off our negligence and laziness by means of love and then we will enjoy what is good and beautiful, that is, love.

9232 Your only exercise then will be the love of God, both the love that you will have toward Him as well as that which you recognize in Him, to spur you to love Him alone tenderly and reciprocally, and follow this sole motive and exercise in the reform of your body, soul and spirit, taking no notice of the gossip of others, because it is the divine lure by which all souls are taken and retaken; and it is also the bond of perfection. If therefore we are lovers of perfection, let us, I beg you, have the same sentiments, let us say and teach the same to all.

The tool and instrument of this love, in this state and degree, is this burning desire, the living and good will, as mentioned above. Your exercises therefore will be exercises of love. As you have begun, so continue. But just as you do not knoe how to do anything in the world without light, much less in the spiritual world of life and perfection of spirits. Let us therefore first shed light in the bride’s room, to guide her in the ways of the holy love of Jesus.[22]

3. Way of contemplating the Passion of the Saviour Bridegroom

9233 If you have noticed, I said that this very sweet representation of the humanity of Jesus is to be done at first by mere imagination, that is, globally, without entering with the imagination into its various particulars, and, moreover, when you represent it to yourself in the imagination, you must do it totally nobly, intellectually and divinely in a singular way, and not as a pure creature or as a holy, beautiful, good, lovable person who has done many good things to you, and this in a merely sensitive and sensual way, as many are accustomed to do, whereby they tend to let themselves be carried towards Him by a certain natural compassion and commiseration that lead them to weep and sigh.

I, on the other hand, say that this must be done in a very different and nobler way, by representing to you a supernatural image, that is, by always proposing to you as God and Man together [597r], Son of God, Word of God, God in person, and by doing the same in reference to humanity, you will always have God in your thoughts.

9234 I said then out of mutual love, imitating His noble and splendid perfections and rendering love out of love. In fact, the Passion of the Saviour must not only be considered and thought in an imaginary way, but also in a living, efficacious and transformative way, which until you have done this you will never have peace until you have conformed yourself completely through likeness and imitation as far as it is possible for you. Imitation, I say, not as some of you imagine, as, for example, imagining the patience of our Lord by trying to have a little patience when needed, or humility with humbling oneself for this and that, but I mean to speak of a living and real imitation with an ardent desire to suffer, always disposing oneself with desire to some insult, misery or contumely out of visceral love that the soul bears to its dear love Jesus, which it does not know how to reciprocate, and when the occasion arises for any humiliation and contempt to be done to it, then it receives them wholeheartedly with affection and with all the inmost joy [597v], and it rejoices in them, it feeds on them, considering itself even unworthy of being made to conform to the sufferings of its Bridegroom and desiring to persevere in them until the day of judgment and to be considered vile and miserable by all in general.

9235 To put it briefly, this soul still considers it a small thing to obey only the commandments of God and the Church, so much so that it is highly desirable to also observe all divine counsels and sweet to practice them, and it does not believe that there is anything in the world more pleasant. In fact, what its Bridegroom said: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,”[23] is so pleasing to its inmost love that it is not only content to use affable and benign words with its enemies, but more than that it loves them with all the depth of its affection, renders them all honour, desires for them all good things, and always with a good heart covers with amiable justifications (if it can do so honestly) all their mistakes and insults received; and not because it is insensitive and so foolish as not to see the love and hatred that others cause to it, but because it does not wish to see or know such wrongdoings, nor make a show of being troubled by them, following the [598r] model and example that it recognises in its Bridegroom, to whom it supremely desires to conform and model itself in everything, without any flattery.

Therefore, when you encounter contempt or suffering, remember to run immediately to your ordinary and daily mirror, that is, to the life, passion and death of your Bridegroom, and see how you can configure yourself, out of loving satisfaction in the present contempt and torments, in His death, in His sorrows, in His ignominies, as St. Paul did.[24]

9236 You will take great care to always carry and to make present to yourself your sweet Bridegroom in your thoughts, in the depths of your heart, in the centre of your soul. You will imprint Him in your imagination, in your intelligence, in your will, considering how He lived holy and perfectly throughout His life, resigned, simple, modest, humble, indifferent. Have Him equally present in your love and internal desire to imitate Him externally and to transform yourself into Him crucified by simple memory of His sufferings, which you will try to transform into affections, as you learned in the chapter dealing with sober love.[25]

Contemplate[598v] Him unceasingly in your spirit, have Him as a perpetual companion on your pilgrimage, take no step or action except with Him by keeping Him always in your thoughts, inwardly dealing with all your affairs with His majestic grandeur, expecting from Him the inner inspirations and responses of His holy will, saying to Him every time, “My beloved Saviour, what do you want from me and what should I do in this situation?”[26]

The mirror of the soul Bride

9237 See then in Him as in a most clear and splendid mirror the ornament and shades of all the virtues, imprinting on your soul the form of His abysmal humility and profoundest renunciation and abjection, contemplating His inestimable meekness, sweetness of heart or gentleness, His patience beyond all human limits and capacity, and all His sublime virtues, contemplating them (I repeat) not, as limited and circumscribed, but without measure and beyond every modality and in every way with every person whoever he may be, alone or in company, in every place [599r] and time, in every act, occupation, affliction, temptation, in the city, at home, in prosperous things as in adverse.

Take and always propose this most excellent mirror before your spirit as if you saw it present before you, applying all the powers of your soul to it,[27] to the point that, even if you were the first official of the crown of France with all the affairs of the kingdom in your hands, or, in short, were also the busiest in the world and with some distracting task or office, you must still fix this amiable and loving memory and representation impressed and tattooed in your soul, as if you were closed, alone, in your room, in your study, oratory and cell, free from all business, or you were in a corner of the church or in a chapel.

9238 If you say that you cannot do this, I answer that it is a lack of love and habit and that you have little courage in wanting to force yourself, in trying and experiencing whether it is possible to do it, or whether in time it will be possible to achieve it by strength of exercises and efforts. And I know that, thanks be to God, these people have obtained this for themselves, and yet they are in worldly affairs, while you here continue to say that it is [599v] impossible; or is it the world that blocks you and pleases you more than Jesus Christ?

Transformation of thoughts during the meal

9239 Therefore conduct your affairs and speak with such moderation as if you visibly saw Him before you in the flesh. And regarding entertaining Him everywhere, where we have spoken of sober love which you have already learned the way of conversing with Him during the meal, and for the gift of piety you will have at your disposal, God willing, the other conversations.

However, I would add another suggestion here: when you eat, think that you are sitting next to Him and that He entertains you with sweet familiar conversations about His Kingdom of Heaven, where souls are refreshed at His table with far more delights than on earth, and pray to Him immediately after this thought that He will at least make you partaker of them by the infusion of His gifts in your present life. When you drink, think that He blesses your drinking and offers you, as in heaven, to be able to drink His love from His holy wounds, and especially from that of the side which is the primary wound of love.

9240 Do you wash your hands? Remember that He washed your soul with His blood and tell Him to purify it with the sweet water of His grace and love.

If you walk, imagine Him standing beside you in the company of your guardian angel. If you talk to someone, if you preach, consider Him present, observing you and listening to your words and staring into your face, considering all your gestures and immediately your intention.

Just so, if out of good habit you have love in your heart and a great desire to live and die with Jesus Christ, you will always have Him present in your memory and in your heart, in every circumstance and encounter, and you will pay more attention to His holy conversations than to any other company, however noble and excellent it may be, and by remaining faithful, little by little you will feel yourself completely transformed into another man. But I do not want to dwell on describing the wonderful consolations you will experience; I leave the truth to experience. It is enough for me to say that you will become completely divine. That is more than enough.[28]

4. God is our spirit and our life

9241 Worship God everywhere in spirit and truth,[29] which means to be suspended in God by love and united to Him. In fact, you always find Him in you, because He is more intimate and closer to you than anything else, He is the being of your being, the life of your spirit, the conservative essence of your essence. Thus, you will do all your works in God, looking only at God reigning over you and who dominates everywhere and sustains everything, and you will convince yourselves that it is God who above all has done them.

Look only at Him when you act; love only Him in your actions; have no other pretension than to fulfill His holy will and His pure love. Deal with Him promptly about everything and with a simple, open and transcendent eye, gaze upon Him above and before everything else and console yourselves in His so immediate presence. Who will be able to confuse you if you do so?

Everything is thus raised above what you do, where no disturbance can approach, as also [603r] no multiplicity and distraction can disturb the divine stillness and unity, so that in a certain way no one can convey agitation to your spirit so united to only one, planted in only one, where no multitude is present and gathered in multitude, but in unity; and this you can do only with God (being a supernatural reality), since it is very clear that the natural cannot surpass itself, nor renounce everything and itself.

9242 Be solicitous, therefore, to see God everywhere, to always give Him acts of love, as if saying, “I am your little creature, you are my creator, you are my Father, my love; I desire to love you with all my heart and I want to do this by whatever means you want. I wish you to be honoured by all creatures,” and a thousand other similar acts, that is, when you have only these two words in your thought, ‘My God,’ or ‘my Father,’ or ‘my love,’ and the like; or when you have only a simple inexplicable mute tendency or inclination, like a person who cannot speak allows himself [603v] to be held in the arms of another, and this is sufficient, indeed it is the most excellent means.

And because of your inexperience with this silence, it does not allow you to exercise it, also because it is difficult to maintain it for a long time without the support of some small mental words, therefore you are allowed to use some of them.

Therefore, make God always present with intention and love, saying: “My God, here is your will, I want to do it, and I offer it to you to testify that I want to love you more and more. O God of my heart, O my only All, take me completely and immerse my spirit in your divinity, so that on every side I see nothing but the divinity, I see nothing but you, my God.”[30]

  1. Cf. 1 Cel 17; 2 Cel 196; Leg. Per. 53 (FF nn. 348, 784, 1603). ↑
  2. Cf. Phil 3:12. ↑
  3. On the right margin of this paragraph, in the original text, we read: Similitude notable. ↑
  4. Cf. Phil 3:15. ↑
  5. Cf. Rb 10:10 (FF n. 104). See also: Laurent de Paris, Les tapisseries du divin amour, ou la Passion et mort de Iesus fils de Dieu, vivant Redempteur des bumains selon la verité de l’histoire par tout. Contenant les douleurs internes du Sauveur du monde en centet quatre contemplations, Paris 1631, where the idea of chapter 10 of the Rule returns, as writes M. Dubois-Quinard, Laurent de Paris, 261. ↑
  6. Cf. Rb 5:3 (FF n.88) ↑
  7. The passage is removed from the chapter. IV: Que la perfection que nous cherchons icy ne consiste pas en un acte interieur et spirituel provenant de l’homme. ↑
  8. Note the Augustinian inspiration of Fecisti nos ad te etc., quoted later, and the implicit reference to Ps 33:9 and 1 Pet 2:3. – In the original French text we read, next to this paragraph, the following marginal note: La perfections en la jouissance de Dieu, that is, “Perfection in the fruition of God.” ↑
  9. Cf. 2 Cor 3:18. ↑
  10. Cf, St. Augustine, Confessions, book I, chap. 1 (PL 32, 661). ↑
  11. Cf. St. Augustine, Confessions, book XIII, chap. 9 (PL 32, 849). ↑
  12. He says this in his Erarrationes in psalmos: in psalmum 9, n. 15 (PL 36, 124). ↑
  13. Cf. 1 Cor 13. ↑
  14. Cf. 1 Jn 4:16. ↑
  15. Cf. Ugo di S. Vittore, Institutiones in decalogum legis dominicae (PL 176, 15-18); see also Arra dell’anima (ed. Arrigo Levasti, I mistici, vol. I, Florence 1925, 90s). ↑
  16. Cf. Dionysius the Areopagite, Nomi divini, chap. IV, 13: «Divine love is also ecstatic, in that it does not allow lovers to belong to themselves, but to those they love» (Tutte le opere. Trans. by Piero Scazzoso, Milan 1981, 310f.). ↑
  17. Cf. Dt 10. ↑
  18. Cf. Mt 22:36-40. ↑
  19. Cf. Eph 2:4. ↑
  20. Jn 3:16. ↑
  21. Jn 14:21. ↑
  22. The passage is taken from the chapter. LVI of Le Palais de l’amour divin, which bears the title: Le propre exercice de la bonne volonté et gran désir. ↑
  23. Cf. Lk 6:27; Mt 5:44. ↑
  24. The image of the mirror was already used by St. Clare (cf. Lett. IV to Blessed Agnes of Prague, 14-26: FF nn. 2902-2904); for St. Paul cf. 2 Cor 4:9-18. ↑
  25. It’s the chap. CXXXV entitled: Du troisième cloud de l’amour crucifiant la chair, qui est l’amour sobre et tempéré au gouvernement et nourriture de son corps (cf. Le Palais d’amour cit., 516r-526r). ↑
  26. This last paragraph is marked in the French original by the marginal word: Praticque. ↑
  27. In the margin, in the original French, it is written: Notez. ↑
  28. This long passage is taken from chap. CXLII of Le Palais de l’amour divin, entitled: De l’amour simplifiant la pensée par un estouffement de toutes villaines cogitations, vains pensements, imaginations et soucis inquietants au moyen d’une suspension continuelle de mémoire en Dieu présent et d’une chaste aspiration ou inclination en luy; or, in translation: Of love which simplifies thought by suffocating every ill-mannered and vain reflection, every imagination and anguished concern through a continuous suspension of memory in God and a chaste aspiration or inclination in him. ↑
  29. Cf. Jn 4:23-24. ↑
  30. The passage is taken from the same chapter cited above: De l’amour simplifiant la pensee. ↑