[CHAPTER VII.]
There is no Enduring Peace but in Submission to the Divine Action.
The soul that is not united solely to the will of God will find neither rest nor sanctification in any self-chosen means—not even in the most excellent exercises of piety. If that which God Himself chooses for you does not suffice, what other hand can minister to your desires? If you turn from the food the divine will itself has prepared for you, what viands will not prove insipid to a taste so depraved? A soul cannot be truly nourished, strengthened, purified, enriched, sanctified, except by the fulness of the present moment. Then what more would you have? Since you here find all good, why seek it elsewhere? Are you wiser than God? Since He ordains it should be thus, how could you desire it should be otherwise? Can His wisdom and goodness err? Should you not from the moment He ordains an event be utterly convinced that it is the best that could happen? Do you think you will find peace in struggling with the Almighty? On the contrary, is it not this struggle too often renewed, almost unconsciously, which is the cause of all our disquiet. It is but just that the soul which is not satisfied with the divine fulness of the present moment should be punished by an inability to find contentment in anything else.
If books, the example of the saints, spiritual discourses, destroy the peace of the soul, if they fill without satisfying, it is a mark that we have not received them in simple abandonment to the divine action, but have taken them ourselves in a spirit of proprietorship. Their fulness, therefore, bars the entrance of God to the soul, and we must rid ourselves of it as an obstacle to grace. But when the divine action ordains the use of these means, the soul receives them as it does everything else—that is, in the order of God. She accepts them as she finds them, in her fidelity simply using them, never appropriating them; and their moment passed she abandons them to find her contentment in what follows in the order of Providence. In truth there is nothing really beneficial for me but that which comes to me in the order of God. Nowhere can I find any means, however good in itself, more efficacious for my sanctification and more capable of giving peace to my soul.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
The Perfection of Souls and the Excellence of Different States are in Proportion to their Conformity to the Order of God.
The order of God gives to all things which concern the faithful soul a supernatural and divine value; all that it exacts, all that it embraces, and all the objects upon which it sheds its light become holiness and perfection, for its virtue is limitless: it makes all that it touches divine. But in order to keep ourselves in the path of perfection, swerving neither to the right nor the left, the soul must follow no inspiration which she assumes comes from God without first assuring herself that it does not interfere with the duties of her state in life. These duties are the most certain indications of the will of God, and nothing should be preferred to them; in fulfilling them there is nothing to be feared, no exclusion or discrimination to be made; the moments devoted to them are the most precious and salutary for the soul from the fact that she is sure of accomplishing the good pleasure of God. All the perfection of the saints consists in their fidelity to the order of God; therefore we must refuse nothing, seek nothing, but accept all from His hand, and nothing without Him. Books, wise counsels, vocal prayers, interior affections, if they come to us in the order of God, instruct, guide, and unite the soul to Him. Quietism errs when it disclaims these means and all sensible appearances, for there are souls whom God wills shall be always led in this way, and their state and their attractions clearly indicate it. In vain we picture to ourselves methods of abandonment whence all action is excluded. When the order of God causes us to act, our sanctification lies in action.
Besides the duties of each one’s state, God may further ask certain actions which are not included in these duties, though not contrary to them. Attraction and inspiration, then, indicate the divine order; and the most perfect for souls whom God leads in this way is to add to things of precept, things inspired, but always with the precautions which inspiration requires to prevent its interfering with the duties of one’s state and the ordinary events of Providence.
God makes saints as He chooses. They are formed by His divine action, to which they are ever submissive, and this submission is the truest abandonment and the most perfect.
Fidelity to the duties of one’s state and submission to the dispositions of Providence are common to all the saints. They live hidden in obscurity, for the world is so fatal to holiness that they would avoid its quicksands; but not in this does their sanctity consist, but wholly in their entire submission to the order of God. The more absolute their submission the greater their sanctity. We must not imagine that those whose virtues God is pleased to brilliantly manifest by singular and extraordinary works, by undoubted attractions and inspirations, are any less faithful in the path of abandonment. Once the order of God makes these brilliant works a duty they fail in abandonment to Him and His will which ceases to rule their every moment, and their every moment ceases to be the exponent of the will of God if they content themselves with the duties of their state and the ordinary events of Providence. They must study and measure their efforts according to the standard of God’s designs for them in that path which their attractions indicate to them. Fidelity to inspiration is for them a duty; and as there are souls whose whole duty is marked by an exterior law, and who must be guided by it because God confines them to it, so also there are others who, besides their exterior duties, must be further faithful to that interior law which the Holy Spirit engraves upon their hearts.