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Treat God as a child treats his Father
It would seem that nothing should be easier or more common for
Christians than to look upon God as their Father, and act towards
Him with simplicity, confidence and abandonment. It is the very
spirit of the New Law, and is what distinguishes it from the Old.
One of the fundamental dogmas of our faith is that God the Father
has adopted us in His Son Jesus Christ, and raised us up to the
supernatural state of His children, whereby we are made heirs,
indeed, of God and joint heirs with Christ; [60] an inheritance
which gives us a right to heaven as our home and to the eternal
possession of God. This title, child of God, presupposes and
recalls to our minds the chief objects of our faith, is the
foundation of our hope, and the paramount motive of our love.
Yet nothing is rarer among Christians than this filial disposition
towards God; almost all are more inclined to fear than to love
Him. They find it exceedingly difficult to have a complete trust
in Him, to the extent of abandoning themselves totally to His
divine Providence. What is so little known, and even less
practised in the spiritual life and most difficult to human
nature, is the casting of all our care upon Him, in the firm faith
that nothing can be ordained by His Providence that will not work
for our good, unless we ourselves place some obstacle in the way.
[61]
This all comes from self-love which would persuade us that our
interests are only safe so long as we have the control of them in
our own hands. We cannot make up our minds to entrust them to God,
and, in all that concerns us, to look upon Him as a Father, no
matter how much our love is put to the test. We are ready to trust
Him when He indulges us, sends us consolations and gives us all we
ask. But when, to teach us to love and serve Him for His sake and
not for our own, as such a Father deserves to be loved, He
withdraws the comforts we have abused, refuses what would harm us,
and offers us what is for our good but which we do not want, then
we no longer think of Him as a Father but as a harsh task-master.
His demands are distasteful to us and we are ready at any moment
to quit His service. Even our spiritual director has the greatest
difficulty to restrain us when he takes God's part against us.
Yet it is nevertheless true that God never shows Himself more
truly a Father than in the trials He sends us. His crosses are the
most precious favours He could bestow on us in this life, and the
heavier the burden He lays upon those who have given themselves to
Him, the more is it a proof of the love He bears them. Was not Our
Lord the well-beloved Son, in Whom the Father was well pleased?
[62] Yet how did He treat Him, from His birth to His last sigh
upon the Cross? Was He less His Father when He gave Him up into
the hands of wicked men; when to all appearances He forsook Him on
the Cross, and suffered Him to die tortured and in shame? Surely
not! And it may truly be said that if Calvary was the scene of
Christ's love for His Father, it was no less the clearest
demonstration of the Father's love for His Son. Judge by the
consequences. All the glory and power and blessing which Our Lord
possesses as man, He owes to the Cross. Did He not Himself say:
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter
into His glory? I His Father required that temporary proof of
obedience at His hands, that He in turn might give Him an eternal
proof of the magnificence of His reward.
With the example of Our Lord, then, before our eyes, never let us
think that God is not acting as our Father when He asks sacrifices
of us that are painful to nature; when, having asked and received
our consent, He takes us at our word, and exacts the fulfilment of
our promise. It is true that the Face He turns to us then may seem
severe, and it is His justice rather than His love that we see;
but never was He more our Father, never were the marks of His love
more apparent to the eyes of faith.
Consider also the upbringing of a child. While weak and tender, he
is nursed, carried, petted, indulged and soothed. But as he grows
older, he is placed under a rule; he is obliged to do things which
are unpleasant, and of which he does not as yet see the use. He is
broken in to obedience and habituated to control his desiresand
follow the guidance of reason. When necessary, he is treated
severely and chastised. Why? Solely in order to draw out his
powers, to make a man of him, and to prepare him for a useful and
happy life in the future, according to his state in life.
In the same manner does God act towards His children. He intends
them for citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. When they begin to
give themselves up to Him, He makes the greatest allowances for
their weakness. He lavishes sweetness and consolations upon them,
in order to win their hearts. He makes all things easy to them. He
removes temptations, pleases them and, as it were, makes Himself a
child with them. But as they grow stronger and are capable of
receiving solid lessons in the interior life, He adopts another
plan. He attacks nature, pursues all its defects and vicious
propensities, sparing none. He prescribes difficult duties, and
requires their fulfilment with extreme severity. The language of
grace is no longer tender and persuasive: it is strong, imperious,
even threatening; the least resistance is rigourously punished. He
proportions the exercises, the trials and temptations that He
sends, to their strength and state. The more He has endowed them
with powers natural and supernatural, the more He demands of them,
until they are moulded to all the virtues, and have passed through
all the degrees of holiness. When they have reached that point of
perfection to which He desires to bring them, when they have
become worthy of Him, then their spiritual education is complete,
and He removes them to His kingdom, where He crowns their
struggles and their obedience, making them everlastingly partakers
of His glory and bliss.
Thus the interior life throughout its whole course is nothing
other than an education divine and paternal, inspired and ruled by
love. God, on His side, fulfils perfectly the role of a Father,
Whose desire is to make us happy. Let us, then, on our part, do
all He expects of us as His children.
Once again, let us take children as our pattern. What are the
feelings that a well-disposed child entertains for his father? In
the first place, great simplicity, ingenuousness and candour. A
child has no notion of concealing or dissimulating with his
father. He opens his heart to him, tells him all he feels, and
that is how we should act towards God. In fear, joy or sorrow, we
should go to Him with the candour and simplicity of children. He
knows better than we do what is passing in us, but He likes us to
speak to Him about it. He wants to be our confidant and friend. Do
not be afraid, then, to address Him sometimes with loving
reproaches: such holy liberty pleases Him; nothing displeases Him
more than cold reserve.
The next thing noticeable in a child is his trust. Timid and
distrustful where others are concerned, in his father he places
unbounded confidence. He knows that his father loves him; that he
cares for him, toils for him, plans for him, and has no other aim
but his happiness. And so he neither cares nor troubles himself
about his own welfare, but leaves all to his father, who provides
for his wants, even for his innocent pleasures, forestalls his
slightest wishes, and reads them in his eyes. He is persuaded that
the advice, the lessons, the corrections of his father, the
various tasks he imposes, the severity he uses towards him, even
what seems to be hurtful, have no other object than his true
happiness. He knows this, not by reasoning, but by instinct and
experience.
If only we had the same confidence in our heavenly Father, Who is
worthy of it infinitely more than any earthly father! If only we
would make over to His Divine Providence the care of our spiritual
interests; confide to His grace far more than to our own efforts
our spiritual welfare and perfection. If only we were deeply
convinced that God does all things and ordains all things for our
good; that His precepts which act as a curb to our passions, the
duties that seem so painful, the evils and afflictions He permits,
the hidden dispositions by which He disturbs our plans and cuts
across our undertakings, the very faults and falls He refuses to
prevent in order that we may be humble and mistrust ourselves, are
permitted solely with a view to our eternal good--if, I say, we
believed these things, how God would be glorified by our trust,
and what intimate care, what loving attentions would not our
confidence draw down upon us.
St. Paul lays it down as an axiom of the spiritual life that all
things--without exception -- work together unto good to them that
love God. [63] What does loving God mean, save looking upon Him as
a Father, speaking to Him, relying upon Him for everything, acting
and cooperating with His grace, and, having done on our part all
that He expects of us, trusting solely to His love and mercy? O
filial trust! What anxiety you would spare Christians who
sincerely desire their salvation, and how you would assure it much
better than all the sufferings of mind that self-love brings in
its train! Leave to your heavenly Father the direction of your
inner life, follow quietly the attraction of grace, consult His
holy will in all things, oppose it in nothing. For the rest, pay
no heed to your foolish questionings, calm your imagination, and
despise the vain fears that would weaken your trust in Him. This
is the way to heaven, and if you meet with difficulties on the
way, they come from you, not from God.
Obedience is another characteristic of a child's disposition: an
obedience altogether founded on love, not arising from fear as is
the servile obedience of slaves, nor dictated by a mercenary self-
interest. An obedience which embraces without reserve its Father's
will, not considering whether the carrying out of that will is
easy or difficult, pleasant or otherwise. An obedience generous,
prompt and courageous, neither complaining nor excusing itself,
finding its reward in the joy of having done its duty in pleasing
a Father it loves and respects. Is it thus that most Christians
obey God? I doubt it: and why?
It is because for the most part they forget that God is their
Father. They look upon Him in quite another light. Some fear
damnation more than they desire their salvation. They are moved
more by the thought of the pains of hell than by that of the joys
of heaven. Fear is at the root of their obedience. They regard God
as a harsh master, and a severe judge.
Now fear has the power to keep us from evil, but not to lead us to
good. It is a curb, not a spur. It is the beginning, but only the
beginning, of wisdom. [64] God does not mean us to stop there.
From fear we ought to pass on to love; indeed, we are not fearing
God when we only fear His chastisements, and we do not obey Him
according to His will when we yield only to His warnings. So that
this obedience is equally imperfect in its motive. It permits the
whole weight of the yoke to be felt, but does not remove from the
heart a secret longing to be rid of it. It limits itself to the
letter of the law, and, as men naturally interpret the law in
their own favour, its obligations are often imperfectly fulfilled
Others do, indeed, consider God as their rewarder. They serve Him
from a motive of hope, but they care less for Himself than for the
good things He promises. They hope, that is, for the possession of
God, but less for His sake than for their own happiness. In other
words, self is uppermost in their minds and they barely pay
attention to anything else.
This motive is not bad, since it incites to well doing, but it is
not pure enough, and if their obedience has no other stay, it will
be weak and hesitating, and often fretful. True faith, which is
evidenced by love, has very little influence on their conduct. The
present good and evil counts with them as much as the good to
come. And that is why they find it so difficult to practise
virtue, which consists principally in mistrusting the pleasant
things of this world, and accepting the unpleasant. We may indeed
fear for them when certain temptations come upon them, which only
the love of God can enable them to overcome.
It is not in fear, then, nor in self-interest, but in love that we
shall find the deep principle of the obedience which is due to
God, and nothing will inspire us with that love more than the role
of Father which God has deigned to assume for our sakes. When,
having meditated on this Name so tender and on the dispositions it
presupposes in God in my regard, I consider that from all eternity
He has loved me, not merely as His creature but as His child; that
He has gone so far as to tell us in the Sacred Word that, even if
a mother should forget the child of her womb, yet will He never
forget us; [65] when I realize that He has raised us to be His
sons by adoption, [66] destined to be associated with His divine
Son in His heavenly inheritance and to share in His eternal
beatitude; when I consider, above all, the marvellous plan of His
paternal love and what it cost the Son to raise me to that divine
adoption, and the inestimable graces which accompanied and have
followed that amazing gift: what, I say, can I refuse to such a
Father, Whose only motive in all He asks of me is the love He
bears me, and the good He wills to bestow upon me?
What can I see in His law but the loveliest and most just of
duties, namely to love Him; for in this consists the whole of His
law. [67] How can I regard this as a yoke or a burden? Sweet,
indeed, is His yoke and His burden light; [68] and never will I
regret having taken them upon me. My endeavour, then, shall be to
love this kindest of Fathers in gratitude for His love for me; and
to prove my love for Him by an obedience which I shall regard as
my greatest joy. So, too, my greatest sorrow would be not to love
Him, and to disobey Him in the least thing.
Nor will I limit myself to the performance of those things which
He commands under pain of His displeasure. I shall study to do
what pleases Him. The least sign He gives me shall be a law to me,
and I will try to refuse Him nothing, complain of nothing, and
submit with joy to all, even to the most painful dispensations of
His Providence. For His name of Father always bids me look upon
them as marks of His love, and trials of mine. Thus Job felt, when
in the depth of his afflictions he cried: If we have received good
things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? [69]
And: Although He should kill me, yet will I trust Him. [70] And
again: May this be my comfort, that afflicting me with sorrow, He
spare not: nor I contradict the words of the Holy One. [71] So far
should a Christian carry his confidence and submission towards
such a Father.
How weak is human respect when it attacks a heart full of filial
love. The attractions and seductions of the world do not interest
the true child of God. He neither fears its threats nor its
ridicule. He holds up his head and boldly declares his mind, when
His Father's honour is at stake. If he hides himself from the
sight of men, he does so through humility, never through weakness.
He does nothing to draw attention to himself, and cares not
whether he is seen or not seen, praised or blamed, esteemed or
contemned. To him the world is as though it were not. In company
or alone, his eyes are always fixed on his Father, and his
concerns are with Him alone. How should he trouble himself about
pleasing the world, when he does not wish to please even himself?
He dreads nothing so much as having to think of himself; he does
all he can to forget himself, and would shrink from diminishing
his Father's glory by anything approaching self-complacency. And
if by chance he should do so from time to time, he deeply regrets
it as a real fault.
The delicacy of his love goes further still. Content to please
God, he is in no way eager for his love to be recognized. He
neglects nothing whereby he may be acceptable in God's sight, but
asks for no sign of assurance that he is so. He knows that self-
love would rest satisfied with such an assurance, and his love for
God would suffer accordingly.
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