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Section 3. -The Work of our Sanctification.
If the work of our sanctification presents,
apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we
do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can
be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties
appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one's
power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise.
The active practice of fidelity consists in
accomplishing the duties which devolve upon us whether imposed by
the general laws of God and of the Church, or by the particular
state that we may have embraced. Its passive exercise consists in
the loving acceptance of all that God sends us at each moment.
Are either of these practices of sanctity
above our strength?
Certainly not the active fidelity, since the
duties it imposes cease to be duties when we have no longer the
power to fulfil them. If the state of your health does not permit
you to go to Mass you are not obliged to go. The same rule holds
good for all the precepts laid down; that is to say for all those
which prescribe certain duties. Only those which forbid things
evil in themselves are absolute, because it is never allowable to
commit sin. Can there, then, be anything more reasonable? What
excuse can be made? Yet this is all that God requires of the soul
for the work of its sanctification. He exacts it from both high
and low, from the strong and the weak, in a word from all, always
and everywhere.
It is true then that He requires on our part only
simple and easy things since it is only necessary to employ this
simple method to attain to an eminent degree of sanctity. If, over
and above the Commandments, He shows us the counsels as a more
perfect aim, He always takes care to suit the practice of them to
our position and character. He bestows on us, as the principal
sign of our vocation to follow them, the attractions of grace
which make them easy. He never impels anyone beyond his strength,
nor in any way beyond his aptitude. Again, what could be more
just?
All you who strive after perfection and who are tempted to
discouragement at the remembrance of what you have read in the
lives of the saints, and of what certain pious books prescribe; O
you who are appalled by the terrible ideas of perfection that you
have formed for yourselves; it is for your consolation that God
has willed me to write this. Learn that of which you seem to be
ignorant.
This God of all goodness has made those things easy
which are common and necessary in the order of nature, such as
breathing, eating, and sleeping. No less necessary in the
supernatural order are love and fidelity, therefore it must needs
be that the difficulty of acquiring them is by no means so great
as is generally represented. Review your life. Is it not composed
of innumerable actions of very little importance?
Well, God is
quite satisfied with these. They are the share that the soul must
take in the work of its perfection. This is so clearly explained
in Holy Scripture that there can be no doubt about it: "Fear God
and keep the commandments, this is the whole duty of man"(Ecclesiastes
xii, 13), that is to say-this is all that is required on the part
of man, and it is in this that active fidelity consists. If man
fulfils his part God will do the rest. Grace being bestowed only
on this condition the marvels it effects are beyond the
comprehension of man. For neither ear has heard nor eye seen, nor
has it entered the mind what things God has planned in His
omniscience, determined in His will, and carried out by His power
in the souls given up entirely to Him.
The passive part of sanctity is still more
easy since it only consists in accepting that which we very often
have no power to prevent, and in suffering lovingly, that is to
say with sweetness and consolation, those things that too often
cause weariness and disgust. Once more I repeat, in this consists
sanctity.
This is the grain of mustard seed which is
the smallest of all the seeds, the fruits of which can neither be
recognised nor gathered. It is the drachma of the Gospel, the
treasure that none discover because they suppose it to be too far
away to be sought. Do not ask me how this treasure can be found.
It is no secret. The treasure is everywhere, it is offered to us
at all times and wherever we may be. All creatures, both friends
and enemies pour it out with prodigality, and it flows like a
fountain through every faculty of body and soul even to the very
centre of our hearts. If we open our mouths they will be filled.
The divine activity permeates the whole
universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is
there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all
they have to do is to let the waves bear them on.
Would to God that kings, and their
ministers, princes of the Church and of the world, priests and
soldiers, the peasantry and labourers, in a word, all men could
know how very easy it would be for them to arrive at a high degree
of sanctity. They would only have to fulfil the simple duties of
Christianity and of their state of life; to embrace with
submission the crosses belonging to that state, and to submit with
faith and love to the designs of Providence in all those things
that have to be done or suffered without going out of their way to
seek occasions for themselves.
This is the spirit by which the patriarchs
and prophets were animated and sanctified before there were so
many systems of so many masters of the spiritual life. [1] This is
the spirituality of all ages and of every state. No state of life
can, assuredly, be sanctified in a more exalted manner, nor in a
more wonderful and easy way than by the simple use of the means
that God, the sovereign director of souls, gives them to do or to
suffer at each moment.
Section 4 - In what Perfection Consists The designs of God, the good
pleasure of God, the will of God, the operation of God and the
gift of His grace are all one and the same thing in the spiritual
life. It is God working in the soul to make it like unto Himself.
Perfection is neither more nor less than the faithful co-operation
of the soul with this work of God, and is begun, grows, and is
consummated in the soul unperceived and in secret.
The science of theology is full of theories
and explanations of the wonders of this state in each soul
according to its capacity. One may be conversant with all these
speculations, speak and write about them admirably, instruct
others and guide souls; yet, if these theories are only in the
mind, one is, compared with those who, without any knowledge of
these theories, receive the meaning of the designs of God and do
His holy will, like a sick physician compared to simple people in
perfect health.
The designs of God and his divine will
accepted by a faithful soul with simplicity produces this divine
state in it without its knowledge, just as a medicine taken
obediently will produce health, although the sick person neither
knows nor wishes to know anything about medicine. As fire gives
out heat, and not philosophical discussions about it, nor
knowledge of its effects; so the designs of God and His holy will
work in the soul for its sanctification, and not speculations of
curiosity as to this principle and this state.
When one is thirsty one quenches one's thirst
by drinking, not by reading books which treat of this condition.
The desire to know does but increase this thirst. Therefore when
one thirsts after sanctity, the desire to know about it only
drives it further away. Speculation must be laid aside, and
everything arranged by God as regards actions and sufferings must
be accepted with simplicity, for those things that happen at each
moment by the divine command or permission are always the most
holy, the best and the most divine for us.
Section 5 - The Divine Influence alone can
Sanctify Us
Our whole science consists in recognising the designs of God for
the present moment. All reading not intended for us by God is
dangerous. It is by doing the will of God and obeying His holy
inspirations that we obtain grace, and this grace works in our
hearts through our reading or any other employment. Apart from God
reading is empty and vain and, being deprived for us of the
life-giving power of the action of God, only succeeds in emptying
the heart by the very fullness it gives to the mind.
This divine will, working in the soul of a simple ignorant girl by
means of sufferings and actions of a very ordinary nature,
produces a state of supernatural life without the mind being
filled with self-exalting ideas; whereas the proud man who studies
spiritual books merely out of curiosity receives no more than the
dead letter into his mind, and the will of God having no connexion
with his reading his heart becomes ever harder and more withered.
The order established by God and His divine will are the life of
the soul no matter in what way they work, or are obeyed. Whatever
connexion the divine will has with the mind, it nourishes the
soul, and continually enlarges it by giving it what is best for it
at every moment. It is neither one thing nor another which
produces these happy effects, but what God has willed for each
moment.
What was best for the moment that has passed is so no
longer because it is no longer the will of God which, becoming
apparent through other circumstances, brings to light the duty of
the present moment. It is this duty under whatever guise it
presents itself which is precisely that which is the most
sanctifying for the soul. If, by the divine will, it is a present
duty to read, then reading will produce the destined effect in the
soul. If it is the divine will that reading be relinquished for
contemplation, then this will perform the work of God in the soul
and reading would become useless and prejudicial. Should the
divine will withdraw the soul from contemplation for the hearing
of confessions, etc., and that even for some considerable time,
this duty becomes the means of uniting the soul with Jesus Christ
and all the sweetness of contemplation would only serve to destroy
this union.
Our moments are made fruitful by our fulfilment of the
will of God. This is presented to us in countless different ways
by the present duty which forms, increases, and consummates in us
the new man until we attain the plenitude destined for us by the
divine wisdom. This mysterious attainment of the age of Jesus
Christ in our souls is the end ordained by God and the fruit of
His grace and of His divine goodness.
This fruit, as we have already said, is produced, nourished and
increased by the performance of those duties which become
successive present, and which are made fruitful by the same divine
will.
In fulfilling these duties we are always sure of possessing the
"better part" because this holy will is itself the better part, it
only requires to be allowed to act and that we should abandon
ourselves blindly to it with perfect confidence. It is infinitely
wise, powerful and amiable to those who trust themselves
unreservedly to it, who love and seek it alone, and who believe
with an unshaken faith and confidence that what it arranges for
each moment is best, without seeking elsewhere for more or less,
and without pausing to consider the connexion of these exterior
works with the plans of God: This would be the refinement of
self-love.
Nothing is essential, real, or of any value unless ordained by God
who arranges all things and makes them useful to the soul. Apart
from this divine will all is hollow, empty, null, there is nothing
but falsehood, vanity, nothingness, death. The will of God is the
salvation, health and life of body and soul, no matter to what
subject it is applied. One must not, therefore, scrutinize too
closely the suitability of things to mind or body in order to form
a judgement of their value, because this is of little importance.
It is the will of God which bestows through these things, no
matter what they may be, an efficacious grace by which the image
of Jesus Christ is renewed in our souls. One must not lay down the
law nor impose limits on this divine will since it is
all-powerful.
Whatever ideas may fill the mind, whatever feelings afflict the
body; even if the mind should be tormented with distractions and
troubles, and the body with sickness and pain, nevertheless the
divine will is ever for the present moment the life of the soul
and of the body; in fact, neither the one nor the other, no matter
in what condition it may be, can be sustained by any other power.
The divine influence alone can sanctify us. Without it bread may
be poison, and poison a salutary remedy. Without it reading only
darkens the mind; with it darkness is made light. It is everything
that is good and true in all things, and in all things it unites
us to God, who, being infinite in all perfections, leaves nothing
to be desired by the soul that possesses Him.
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