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Section 7 - Divine Favours Offered to All.
Every soul is called to enjoy the infinite benefits contained in
this state.
Therefore do I preach abandonment, and not
any particular state. Every state in which souls are placed by
Your grace is the same to me. I teach a general method by which
all can attain the state which You have marked out for them. I do
not exact more than the will to abandon themselves to Your
guidance. You will make them arrive infallibly at the state which
is best for them.
It is faith that I preach; abandonment, confidence, and faith; the
will to be subject to, and to be the tool of the divine action,
and to believe that at every moment this action is working in
every circumstance, provided that the soul has more or less
good-will. This is the faith that I preach.
It is not a special
kind of faith, nor of charity, but a general state by which all
souls can find God under the different conditions which He
assumes; and can take that form which divine grace has marked out
for them. I have spoken to souls in trouble, and now I am speaking
to all kinds of souls. It is the genuine instinct of my heart to
care for all, to announce the saving secret far and wide, and to
make myself all to all.
In this happy disposition I make it a duty
which I fulfil without difficulty, to weep with those who weep, to
rejoice with those who rejoice, to speak foolishly with the
foolish, and with the learned to make use of more learned and more
scholastic terms. I wish to make all understand that although they
cannot aspire to the same distinct favours, they can attain to the
same love, the same abnegation, the same God and His work, and
thence it follows naturally, to the highest sanctity.
Those graces
which are called extraordinary and are given as privileges to
certain souls, are only so called because there are so few
sufficiently faithful to become worthy of receiving them. This
will be made manifest at the day of judgment. Alas! it will then
be seen that instead of these divine favours having been withheld
by God, it has been entirely by their own fault that these souls
have been deprived of them. What untold blessings they would have
received through the complete submission of a steadfast goodwill.
It is the same with regard to Jesus as with the divine action. If
those who have no confidence in Him, nor respect for Him, do not
receive any of the favours He offers to all, they have only their
own bad disposition to thank for it. It is true that all cannot
aspire to the same sublime states, to the same gifts, to the same
degree of perfection; yet, if faithful to grace, they corresponded
to it, each according to his degree, they would all be satisfied
because they would all attain that degree of grace and of
perfection which would fully satisfy their desires. They would be
happy according to nature, and according to grace, because nature
and grace share equally in, the ardent desire for this priceless
advantage.
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