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With regard to the immanent and unnamed terminus of love,
we should note what St. Thomas says: "the thing loved
is in the lover, not according to the likeness of the
species as the thing known is in the intellect, but as
that which inclines and to some extent intrinsically impels
the lover toward the thing loved."
By analogy with the word of the intellect this unnamed and
immanent terminus can be called, as it were, the word of
love, keeping in mind that it is a kind of inverted word,
that is, it is produced not by the lover as the
intellectual word is produced by him who understands but
rather the thing loved attracting the lover to itself.
Truth is formally in the mind (as the conformity of the
judgment with the thing); but good is in things (as the
perfection of a lovable thing) and draws the lover to
itself. Cajetan says: "The thing loved does not become
different in the lover except according to the affection of
the lover for the thing loved... . Thus the lover is
drawn, transformed, and objectively impelled to the thing
loved, and so the lover is in that which is loved... .
To be loved is not to be drawn, but to draw the
lover... . Therefore to be in the will as loved is to
be in the will as drawing it, " or attracting the will to
itself.[480] This is what St. Thomas remarks so
often: knowledge draws the object, for instance, God,
to us, but love draws us to the good which is in things.
Therefore in this life "the love of God is better than
the knowledge of God."[481] While this terminus of
the act of love is difficult to express, we find it
expressed in various languages as a wound. In the
Canticle of Canticles: "Thou hast wounded my heart,
my sister, my spouse";[482] and some of the
mystics, St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross,
often speak of this holy wound of love by which God enters
into our hearts and inclines and impels us to Himself.
This holy wound of divine love completely heals the wounds
of sin. It was this truth that prompted the beautiful
prayer of St. Nicholas of Flue: "O my Lord and my
God, take me from myself and make me entirely Thine."
St. Paul also speaks of this drawing by our Lord:
"Not as though I had already attained, or were already
perfect: but I follow after, if I may by any means
apprehend, wherein I am also apprehended by Christ
Jesus."[483] These last words signify not only
that Christ knew St. Paul perfectly, but that He also
accepted him on the day of his conversion[484] as His
apostle and beloved disciple and that Christ always drew
St. Paul Himself. Thus the Christ who is loved is in
St. Paul, who loves, as drawing St. Paul to
Himself.
Although the immanent terminus of love has no name, it
finds at least metaphorical expression in various
languages, especially in the metaphor of a wound. This
metaphor is explained by St. Thomas as follows: Love
causes a languishing, a sadness, because of the absence
of the lover; it wounds, and sometimes violently draws
the lover outside himself and thus produces ecstasy and
rapture.[485] Hence we see that even in his
intellectualism St. Thomas did not ignore the psychology
of love even though there is such a penurious vocabulary
about it; he intentionally makes use of general terms and
supplies with such metaphors as that of the wound.
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