UPON THE PRESENCE IN OUR SOULS OF THE GRACE OF GOD.
There is, I think, no greater temptation than one which assails many good people, namely, the desire to know for certain whether or not they are in a state of grace.
To a poor soul entangled in a perfect spider's web of doubt and mistrust, our Blessed Father wrote the following consoling words: "To try and discover whether or not your heart is pleasing to God is a thing you must not do, though you may undoubtedly try to make sure that His Heart is pleasing to you. Now, if you meditate upon His Heart it will be impossible but that it should be well pleasing to you, so sweet is it, so gentle, so condescending, so loving towards those of His poor creatures who do but acknowledge their wretchedness: so gracious to the unhappy, so good to the penitent. Ah! who would not love this royal Heart, which to us is as the heart both of a father and of a mother?"
As regards interior desolation there are some souls who seem to think that no devotion is worthy of the name which is not sensible and full of emotion.
To one who complained to our Blessed Father of having lost all relish for exercises of piety, he wrote in the following words: "The love of God consists neither in consolations nor in tenderness—otherwise our Lord would not have loved His father when He was sorrowful unto death, nor when He cried out, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?[1] That is to say, then, when He performed the greatest act of love that it is possible to imagine.
"The truth is, we are always hungering after consolation, for a little sugar to be added to our spiritual food; in other words, we always want to experience our feelings of love and tenderness, and thereby to be cheered and comforted."
[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 46.]