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Section 2 - By Faith the Operation of God is recognised
The soul, enlightened by faith, judges of things in a very
different way to those who, having only the standard of the senses
by which to measure them, ignore the inestimable treasure they
contain.
He who knows that a certain person in disguise is the
king, behaves towards him very differently to another who, only
perceiving an ordinary man, treats him accordingly. In the same
way the soul that recognises the will of God in every smallest
event, and also in those that are most distressing and direful,
receives all with an equal joy, pleasure and respect. It throws
open all its doors to receive with honour what others fear and fly
from with horror. The outward appearance may be mean and
contemptible, but beneath this abject garb the heart discovers and
honours the majesty of the king.
The deeper the abasement of his
entry in such a guise and in secret the more does the heart become
filled with love. I cannot describe what the heart feels when it
accepts the divine will in such humble, poor, and mean disguises.
Ah! how the sight of God, poor and humble, lodged in a stable,
lying on straw, weeping and trembling, pierced the loving heart of
Mary! Ask the inhabitants of Bethlehem what they thought of the
Child. You know what answer they gave, and how they would have
paid court to Him had He been lodged in a palace surrounded by the
state due to princes.
Then ask Mary and Joseph, the Magi and the Shepherds. They will
tell you that they found in this extreme poverty an indescribable
tenderness, and an infinite dignity worthy of the majesty of God.
Faith is strengthened, increased and enriched by those things that
escape the senses; the less there is to see, the more there is to
believe. To adore Jesus on Thabor, to accept the will of God in
extraordinary circumstances does not indicate a life animated by
such great faith as to love the will of God in ordinary things and
to adore Jesus on the Cross; for faith cannot be said to be real,
living faith until it is tried, and has triumphed over every
effort for its destruction. War with the senses enables faith to
obtain a more glorious victory.
To consider God equally good in
things that are petty and ordinary as in those that are great and
uncommon is to have a faith that is not ordinary, but great and
extraordinary.
To be satisfied with the present moment is to delight in, and to
adore the divine will in all that has to be done or suffered in
all that succession of events that fill, as they pass, each
present moment. Those souls that have this disposition adore God
with redoubled love and respect in each consecutive humiliating
condition; nothing can hide Him from the piercing eye of faith.
The louder the senses proclaim that in this, or that, there is no
God; the more firmly do these souls clasp and embrace their
"bundle of myrrh." Nothing daunts them, nothing disgusts them.
Mary, when the apostles fled, remained steadfast at the foot of
the Cross. She owned Jesus as her Son when He was disfigured with
wounds, and covered with mud and spittle. The wounds that
disfigured Him made Him only more lovable and adorable in the eyes
of this tender Mother. The more awful were the blasphemies uttered
against Him, so much the deeper became her veneration and respect.
The life of faith is nothing less than the continued pursuit of
God through all that disguises, disfigures, destroys and, so to
say, annihilates Him. It is in very truth a reproduction of the
life of Mary who, from the Stable to the Cross, remained
unalterably united to that God whom all the world misunderstood.
abandoned; and persecuted. In like manner faithful souls endure a
constant succession of trials. God hides beneath veils of darkness
and illusive appearances which make His will difficult to
recognise; but in spite of every obstacle these souls follow Him
and love Him even to the death of the Cross. They know that,
leaving the darkness they must run after the light of this divine
Sun which, from its rising to its setting, however dark and thick
may be the clouds that obscure it, enlightens, warms, and inflames
the faithful hearts that bless, praise and contemplate it during
the whole circle of its mysterious course.
Pursue then without ceasing, ye faithful souls, this beloved
Spouse who with giant strides passes from one extremity of the
heavens to the other. If you be content and untiring nothing will
have power to hide Him from you. He moves above the smallest
blades of grass as above the mighty cedar. The grains of sand are
under His feet as well as the huge mountains. Wherever you may
turn, there you will find His footprints, and in following them
perseveringly you will find Him wherever you may be.
Oh! what delightful peace we enjoy when we have learnt by faith to
find God thus in all His creatures! Then is darkness luminous, and
bitterness sweet. Faith, while showing us things as they are,
changes their ugliness into beauty, and their malice into virtue.
Faith is the mother of sweetness, confidence and joy. It cannot
help feeling tenderness and compassion for its enemies by whose
means it is so immeasurably enriched. The greater the harshness
and severity of the creature, the greater by the operation of God,
is the advantage to the soul. While the human instrument strives
to do harm, the divine Workman in whose hands it is, makes use of
its very malice to remove from the soul all that might be
prejudicial to it.
The will of God has nothing but sweetness, favours and treasures
for submissive souls; it is impossible to repose too much
confidence in it, nor to abandon oneself to it too utterly. It
always acts for, and desires that which is most conducive to our
perfection, provided we allow it to act. Faith does not doubt. The
more unfaithful, uncertain, and rebellious are the senses, the
louder faith cries: "all is well, it is the will of God". There is
nothing that the eye of faith does not penetrate, nothing that the
power of faith does not overcome. It passes through the thick
darkness, and, no matter what clouds may gather; it goes straight
to the truth, and holding to it firmly will never let it go.
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