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Section 4 - God Does All for a Soul of Goodwill.
The conduct of a soul raised to a state of abandonment with regard
to this twofold manifestation of the good pleasure of God.
Souls called by God to a life of perfect
abandonment resemble in this respect our Lord, His holy Mother,
and St. Joseph. The will of God was, to them, the fulness of life.
Submitting entirely to this will as to precept and inspiration
directly it was made manifest to them, they were always in
complete dependence on, what we might call, the purely
providential will of God.
From this it follows that their lives,
although extraordinary in perfection, showed outwardly nothing
that is not common to all, and quite ordinary. They fulfilled the
duties of religion, and of their state as others do, and in,
apparently, the same way. For the rest, if one scrutinizes their
conduct, nothing can be discovered either striking or peculiar;
all follows the same course of ordinary events. That which might
single them out is not discernible; it is that dependence on the
supreme will which arranges all things for them, and in which they
habitually live. The divine will confers on them a complete
self-mastery on account of the habitual submission of their
hearts.
Therefore the souls in question are, by their state, both solitary
and free; detached from all things in order to belong to God, to
love Him in peace, and to fulfil faithfully the present duty
according to His expressed will. They do not allow themselves to
reflect, to neglect, nor to think of consequences, causes or
reasons; it is enough for them to go on simply, accomplishing
their plain duties just as if there did not exist for them
anything but their present obligation, and their duty to God.
The
present moment, then, is like a desert in which the soul sees only
God whom it enjoys; and is only occupied about those things which
He requires of it, leaving and forgetting all else, and abandoning
it to Providence. This soul, like an instrument, neither receives
interiorly more than the operation of God effects passively, nor
gives exteriorly more than this same operation applies actively.
This interior application is accompanied by a free and active
co-operation which is, at the same time, infused and mystical;
that is to say that God, finding in this soul all the necessary
qualifications for acting according to His laws, and satisfied
with its goodwill, spares it the trouble of doing so, by bestowing
all that would otherwise be the fruit of its efforts, or of its
effectual goodwill.
It is as though someone, seeing a friend
preparing for a troublesome journey, would go in his stead, so
that the friend would have the intention of going, but he spared
the trouble of the journey; yet by this impersonation he would
have gone himself, at least virtually. This journey would be free
because it would be the result of a free determination taken
beforehand to please the friend who then takes upon himself the
trouble and expense; it would also be active because it will be a
real advance; and it will be interior because effected without
outward activity; and, finally, it will be mystical because of the
hidden principle it contains.
But to return to that kind of
co-operation that we have explained by this imaginary journey; you
will observe that it is entirely different from fidelity in the
fulfilment of obligations. The work of fulfilling these is neither
mystical nor infused, but free and active as commonly understood.
Therefore abandonment to the good pleasure of God contains
activity as well as passivity. In it there is nothing of self, but
an habitual general goodwill, which like an instrument, has no
action of itself, but responds to the touch of the master. While
in his hands it fulfils all the purposes for which it was formed.
Intentional and determined obedience to the will of God is, in the
ordinary order of vigilance, care, attention, prudence, and
discretion; although ordinary efforts are sensibly aided, or begun
by grace.
Leaving God, then, to act for all the rest, reserve for
yourself at the present moment, only love and obedience, which
virtues the soul will practise eternally. This love, infused into
the soul in silence, is a real action of which it makes a
perpetual obligation. It ought, in fact, to preserve it
faithfully, and to maintain itself constantly in those
dispositions resulting from it, all of which, it is evident,
cannot be done without action. The action, however, is quite
different to obedience to the present duty, by which the soul so
disposes its faculties as to fulfil perfectly the will of God made
manifest to it exteriorly, without expecting anything
extraordinary.
This divine will is to the soul in all things its method, its
rule; and its direct and safe way. It is an unalterable law which
is of all times, of all places, and of all states. It is a
straight line which the soul must follow with courage and
fidelity, neither diverging to the right, nor to the left, nor
overstepping the bounds. Whatever is over and above must be
received passively, as it carries on its work in abandonment. In a
word, the soul is active in all that the present duty requires,
but passive and submissive in all the rest, about which there
should be no self-will, but patient waiting for the divine motion.
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