Love Melts

One of the most profound passages from the Summa quoted in Peter Kreeft’s Practical Theology is this (p. 97), from ST I-II, 289, 5: 

“Four proximate effects may be ascribed to love, viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these, the first is melting, which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen are closely bound together so as to be hard to pierce; but it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved inasmuch as the object loved is in the love. . . . Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love, while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.”

Of the many wonders in this passage, I note only one: Love melts so that the melted heart is permeable; specifically, so that the thing loved can penetrate the heart and dwell in it. Love melts its own way into the heart; it makes its own doorway into the heart and enters the door. God is Love; God is the heat that melts; God is the Lover who enters the opening He Himself makes.