A person struck by the arrow of God's love longs to 'return' to their Beginning, to their God, yet they encounter many obstacles. According to the laws of love, they must first be transformed and enabled to love before they can unite with God, who is Love.
Therefore, the inherent pain of a mystic, a person in love with God, is that the love within them accumulates and cannot yet flow freely. They are sick with an excess of love.
Yet they cannot and do not want to extinguish this fire of love within themselves. There is no way back for them. Everything they see in creation, in Scripture, experiencing what is 'ineffable', further ignites the fire that burns within them. They also strive to fan this fire as much as possible, for they desire exactly that: to be consumed by this fire, to be scorched by love, or to find healing in the presence of their beloved God. The heart opens up and seems to be about to explode from an excess of love; the longing intensifies to the point of becoming unbearable – yet God cannot be grasped, coerced, or owned. Love is a painfully sweet experience.
Because the mystic knows from experience that they cannot, through their own strength, relinquish the need to have everything under control and to dominate everything, they long for their 'self' to grow weary and weak and to become powerless through love. They long to succumb to their love-induced affliction and to be slain by Love. The mystic, wounded, sick with love, lives in dying. In the conflicting process that will last a lifetime, the person is consumed by the power of God's love, dies from an excess of divine beauty, and in the death of love finds true life. The urge to grasp, control, and possess ceases, and the person becomes free in God and for God and for His will in their life.
Francis Amelry, O.Carm. (16th century)
When the beloved continually thinks of the unspeakable goods that are being granted to them, they entirely ignite with love. And just as a blazing fire is always in motion and never remains still,... so too a burning heart is always 'in movement' through the practice of virtues. For as one wise man says: “Love cannot remain without deeds, and if it is without deeds, it is not love” (Gregory).
Just as a sick person has no control over their limbs, which have weakened and grown feeble, likewise it is for the bride who is sick with love: she no longer sees to look at trivial things, no longer hears to listen to trivialities, can no longer speak in such a way as to mention trivialities, can no longer walk to seek trivialities, has no reason to conceive trivialities, nor will to desire them.
According to the book: Dance of Divine Love
Published by: Elisabeth Hense, T.OCarm.
Released by the publishing house: Herder, 1991
Prepared and translated by: Norbert Žuška, O.Carm.
