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To bless and thank God in all the events that his
providence ordains, is in very deed a most holy
exercise, yet if, while we leave the care to God of
willing and doing in us, on us, and with us, what
pleases him, without attending to what passes though
fully feeling it - we could divert our heart, and
apply our attention to the divine goodness and
sweetness - blessing it not in the effects or events
it ordains, but in itself and in its own excellence -
we should certainly practise a far more eminent
exercise.
In the time that Demetrius was laying siege to
Rhodes, Protogenes, who was in a little house in the
suburbs, ceased not to work, and that with such
assurance and repose of mind that though the enemies'
sword was in a manner always at his throat, yet he
executed the grand masterpiece and admirable
representation of a Satyr amusing himself with
playing upon a pipe.
O God! how great are those souls who in all kinds
of accidents keep their affections and attention ever
upon the eternal goodness, honouring and loving it at
all times.
The daughter of an excellent physician and
surgeon, being in a continual fever, and knowing that
her father loved her entirely, said to one of her
friends: I feel very great pain, but I do not think
of remedies, for I do not know what might serve for
my cure; I might desire one thing, and another be
necessary for me. Do I not then gain more by leaving
this care to my father, who knows, who can do, and
who wills for me, all that is required for my health?
I should do wrong by willing anything, for he wills
all that could be profitable to me. I will only wait
to let him will to do what is expedient, and when he
comes to me I will only look at him, testify my
filial love for him, and show my perfect confidence.
And on these words she fell asleep.
Meanwhile her father, judging that it was fit to
bleed her, disposed all that was necessary, and
waking her up asked her if she were willing to suffer
the operation. My father, she said, I am yours; I
know not what to will for my cure; it is yours to
will and do for me what seems good to you; it is
enough for me to love and honour you with all my
heart, as I do. So her arm is tied, and her father
himself opens the vein. And while the blood flows,
this loving daughter looks not at her arm nor at the
spurting blood, but keeping her eyes fixed on her
father's face, she says only, from time to time: My
father loves me, and I, I am entirely his. And when
all was done she did not thank him, but only repeated
her words of filial confidence and love.
Now tell me, my friend Theotimus, did not this
daughter show a more attentive and solid love for her
father, than if she had taken great care to ask
remedies for her malady, to watch the vein being
opened, and the blood coming, and to say many words
of thanks? There is no doubt whatever about it. What
could she have gained save useless solicitude by
thinking for herself, since her father had care
enough of her; what but fear by looking at her arm;
and what virtue but gratitude would she have shown in
thanking her father? Did, she not do best then in
occupying herself entirely in the demonstration of
her filial love, infinitely more agreeable to her
father than every other virtue?
My eyes are ever towards the Lord; for he shall
pluck my feet out of the snare and the nets.(1) Have
you fallen into the net of adversity? Ah! look not
upon your mishap, nor upon the snare in which you are
taken: look upon God and leave all to him, he will
have care of you: Cast thy care upon the Lord and he
shall sustain thee.(2) Why do you trouble yourself
with willing or not willing the events and accidents
of this world, since you are ignorant what were best
for you to will, and since God will always will for
you, without your putting yourself in trouble, all
you could will for yourself?
Await therefore in peace of mind the effects of
the divine pleasure, and let his willing suffice you,
since it is always most good: for so he gave order to
his well-beloved S. Catharine of Siena: Think in me,
said he to her, and I will think for you.
It is very difficult to express exactly this extreme
indifference of the human will, thus absorbed and
dead in the will of God. For, meseems, we must not
say it acquiesces in that of God, because
acquiescence is an act of the soul which declares its
consent. We must not say it accepts or receives,
because accepting and receiving are a sort of
actions, which we might call in a certain sense
passive actions, by which we embrace and take what
happens: we must not say that it permits, as even
permission is an act of the will, and hence is a
certain inactive willing, which does not do and yet
lets be done.
It seems to me the soul which is in this
indifference, and which wills nothing, but lets God
will what pleases him, should be said to have its
will in a simple and general state of waiting (attente):
since waiting is not a doing or acting, but only the
remaining prepared for some event. And, if you take
notice, this waiting of the soul is indeed voluntary,
and yet it is not an action, but a simple disposition
to receive whatsoever shall happen; and as soon as
the events come and are received, the waiting changes
into consent or acquiescence, but, before they
happen, the soul is truly in a state of simple
waiting, indifferent to all that it shall please the
divine will to ordain.
Our Saviour thus expresses the extreme submission
of his human will to the will of his Eternal Father.
The Lord God, he says, hath opened my ear, that is,
he hath declared unto me his pleasure touching the
multitude of the pains which I am to endure, and I,
says he afterwards, do not resist: I have not gone
back.(3) What does this mean: I do not resist: I have
not gone back, except this?
My will is in a simply waiting state, and is ready
for all that God shall send; wherefore I have given
my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that
plucked them: I have not turned away my face from
them that rebuked me and spit upon me; being prepared
to let them exercise their pleasure upon me.
But mark, I pray you, Theotimus, that even as our
Saviour, after he had made his prayer of resignation
in the garden of Olives, and after he was taken, left
himself to be handled and dragged about at the will
of them that crucified him, by an admirable surrender
made of his body and life into their hands, so did he
resign up his soul and will by a most perfect
indifference into his Eternal Father's hands.
For though he cries out: My God, my God, why hast
Thou forsaken me? yet this was to let us understand
the reality of the anguish and bitternesses of his
soul, and not to detract from the most holy
indifference in which it was; as he showed very soon
afterwards, concluding all his life and his passion
with those incomparable words: Father, into Thy hands
I commend my spirit.
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