The will of God has only consolations, graces, treasures, for submissive souls; our confidence in it cannot be too great, nor our abandonment thereto be too absolute. It always wills and effects that which contributes most to our sanctification, provided meanwhile we yield ourselves to its divine action. Faith never doubts it; the more unbelieving, rebellious, despondent, and wavering the senses, the louder Faith cries, “This is God! All is well!”
There is nothing Faith does not penetrate and overcome; it passes beyond all shadows and through the darkest clouds to reach Truth; clasps it in a firm embrace, and is never parted from it.
[CHAPTER III.]
The Divine Action offers us at each Moment Infinite Blessings, which we receive in proportion to our Faith and Love.
If we knew how to greet each moment as the manifestation of the divine will, we would find in it all the heart could desire. For what indeed is more reasonable, more perfect, more divine than the will of God? Can its infinite value be increased by the paltry difference of time, place, or circumstance? Were you given the secret of finding it at all times and in all places, you would possess a gift most precious, most worthy of your desires. What seek ye, holy souls? Give free scope to your longings; place no limit to your aspirations; expand your heart to the measure of the infinite. I have that wherewith to satisfy it: there is no moment in which I may not cause you to find all you can desire.
The present moment is always filled with infinite treasures: it contains more than you are capable of receiving. Faith is the measure of these blessings: in proportion to your faith will you receive. By love also are they measured: the more your heart loves the more it desires, and the more it desires the more it receives. The will of God is constantly before you as an unfathomable sea, which the heart cannot exhaust: only in proportion as the heart is expanded by faith, confidence, and love can it receive of its fulness. All created things could not fill your heart, for its capacity is greater than anything which is not God.
The mountains which affright the eye are but atoms to the heart. The divine will is an abyss, of which the present moment is the entrance; plunge fearlessly therein and you will find it more boundless than your desires. Offer no homage to creatures; adore not phantoms: they can give you nothing, they can take nothing from you. The will of God alone shall be your fulness, and it shall leave no void in your soul. Adore it; go direct to it, penetrating all appearances, casting aside all impediments. The spoliation, the destruction, the death of the senses is the reign of faith. The senses adore creatures; faith adores the divine will. Wrest from the senses their idols, they will weep like disconsolate children; but faith will triumph, for nothing can take from her the will of God. When all the senses are famished, affrighted, despoiled, then does the will of God nourish, enrich, and fortify faith, which smiles at these apparent losses, as the commander of an impregnable fortress smiles at the futile attacks of an enemy.
When the will of God reveals itself to a soul manifesting a desire to wholly possess her, if the soul freely give herself in return she experiences most powerful assistance in all difficulties; she then tastes by experience the happiness of that coming of the Lord, and her enjoyment is in proportion to the degree in which she learned to practise that self abandonment which must bring her at all moments face to face with this ever adorable will.