Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23:6
“God being replenished with a goodness which surpasses all praise and honour, receives no advantage nor increase by all the benedictions which we give Him. He is neither richer nor greater, nor more content or happy by them, for His happiness, His content, His greatness, and His riches neither are nor can be any other thing than the divine infinity of His goodness. At the same time, since, according to our ordinary estimation, honour is held one of the greatest effects of our benevolence towards others, and since by it we not only do not imply any indigence in those we honour, but rather protest that they abound in excellence, we therefore make use of this kind of benevolence towards God, who not only approves it, but exacts it, as suitable to our condition, and so proper to testify the respectful love we bear Him, that He has ordained we should render and refer all honour and glory unto Him.
Thus then the soul who has taken a great complacency in God’s infinite perfection, seeing that she cannot wish Him any increase of goodness, because He has infinitely more than she can either wish or conceive, desires at least that His name may be blessed, exalted, praised, honoured and adored ever more and more. And beginning with Her own heart, she ceases not to provoke it to this holy exercise, and, as a sacred bee, flies hither and thither amongst the flowers of the divine works and excellences, gathering from them a sweet variety of complacencies, from which she works up and composes the heavenly honey of benedictions, praises, and confessions of honour, by which, as far as she is able, she magnifies and glorifies the name of her well-beloved.”
Francis de Sales (1567-1622) in “How Holy Benevolence Produces the Praise of the Divine Well-Beloved” in his classic work, Treatise on the Love of God (Grand Rapids: CCEL) 207-208.
I started meeting with a new spiritual director, Bruce Tallman, who pointed me to this work in our recent conversation. As I read a few excerpts from it today, this picture of a sacred bee struck me.
The flowers come into view in my mind as the beauty and goodness of God. And yet, a little bee is sacred or set apart to taste the flowers and, in so doing, pollinates them and participates in the spreading of their beauty.
That’s what we do when we celebrate the generosity and goodness of God which is abundant. We participate in spreading it widely like a sacred bee. May our lives proclaim God’s generous love today and everyday! Amen.