THE INTIMATE NATURE OF THE TERMINUS OF THE PROCESSION OF LOVE

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.