Drawing from Saint John of the Cross’s Living Flame of Love, there are two main propositions that I lay at the foundation of my theology of spiritual love, both of which are taken from John’s own commentary on stanza 1 of Living Flame of Love:
Proposition 1: The soul’s center is God.
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Proposition 2: Love is the inclination, strength, and power for the soul in making its way to God.
Taken together, these two propositions lead us to the conclusion that spiritual love is a centering force. Alternately stated, love is a spiritual gravity that draws a soul toward its own true center, who is God.
Let us refer to this conclusion that love is a spiritual gravity that draws a soul toward its own true center–God–as Conclusion 1.
Conclusion 1: Love is a spiritual gravity that draws a soul toward its own true center: God.
Conclusion 1 informs an understanding of the two Great Commandments, which are famously 1) to love the Lord God and 2) to love others as self.
Regarding the first Great Commandment to love the Lord God, if the mind properly identifies Jesus as Lord, then Conclusion 1 translates the first Great Commandment into the assent to love the Lord God by allowing oneself to be drawn into the center of the soul of Jesus. This activity of drawing the human soul into the center of the soul of Jesus is the very work of the Holy Spirit.
Regarding the second Great Commandment to love others as self, if one recognizes that God is not only the center of one’s own soul but also the center of all human souls, then Conclusion 1 requires us i) to accept that light into the intellect which allows us to see God-in-other, and ii) to assent in our will to those forces which draw us to that God-in-other. Given Conclusion 1, the opposite requirements also become true and descriptive of our necessary obedience to the second Great Commandment: iii) reject false light from our intellect which obfuscates seeing God-in-other, and iv) reject forces from our will which draw us toward false centers in others which are not God.
Lastly, Conclusion 1 also leads us to view the spiritual life as constituted by those practices which illuminate a brighter understanding of God as the soul’s center (magisterium of intellect), enliven the pull of this spiritual gravity (magisterium of memory?), and facilitate growth in our consent (magisterium of will?) for that same spiritual gravity to draw us increasingly toward our own true center, who is God.