Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/442



436 THE HOLY SPIRIT.

and ignorance concerning matters of such moment may be entirely dispelled, as unworthy of "the children of light." We urge this not only because it affects a mys- tery by which we are directly guided to eternal life, and which must therefore be firmly believed, but also because the more clearly and fully the good is known the more earnestly it is loved. Now we owe to the Holy Ghost, as we mentioned in the second place, love, because He is God: Thou shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength} He is also to be loved because He is the substantial, eternal, primal Love, and nothing is more lovable than love. And this all the more because he has overwhelmed us with the greatest benefits, which both testify to the benevolence of the Giver and claim the gratitude of the receiver. This love has a twofold and most conspicuous utility. In the first place it will excite us to acquire daily a clearer knowledge about the Holy Ghost; for, as the Angelic Doctor says, "the lover is not content with the superficial knowledge of the beloved, but striveth to inquire intimately into all that appertains to the beloved, and thus to penetrate into the interior; as is said of the Holy Ghost, who is the love of God, that He searcheth even the profound things of God. " ^ In the second place it will obtain for us a still more abundant supply of heavenly gifts; for whilst a narrow heart contracteth the hand of the giver, a grateful and mindful heart causeth it to expand. Yet we must strive that this love should be of such a nature as not to consist merely in dry speculations or external observances, but rather to run forward towards action, and especially to fly from sin, which is in a more special manner offensive to the Holy Spirit. For whatever we are, that we are by the divine goodness; and this good- ness is specially attributed to the Holy Ghost. The sin-


 * De\it. vi. 5.

'1 Cor. ii. 10; Summ. Theol., la, 2si., q. 28, a. 2.