O Love! will men never see that Thou meetest them at every step, while they seek Thee hither and thither, where Thou art not? When in the open country, what folly not to breathe its pure air; to pause and study my steps when the path is smooth before me; to thirst when the flood encompasses me; to hunger for God when I may find Him, relish Him, and receive His will through all things!
Seek you, dear souls, the secret of union with God? There is none other than to avail yourselves of all that He sends you. All things may further this union; all things perfect it, save sin, and that which is contrary to your duty. You have but to accept all that He sends and let it do its work in you.
Everything is a banner to guide you, a stay to uphold you, an easy and safe vehicle to bear you on.
Everything is the hand of God. Everything is earth, air, and water to the soul. God’s action is more universally present than the elements. His grace penetrates you through all your senses provided you but use them according to His order; for you must guard and close them to all that is not His will. There is not an atom which, entering your frame, may not cause this divine action to penetrate to the very marrow of your bones. It is the source and origin of all things. The vital fluid which flows in your veins moves only by order of the divine will; all the variations of your system, strength or weakness, languor or vigor, life or death, are but the instruments with which the divine action effects your sanctification. Under its influence all physical conditions become operations of grace. All your thoughts, all your emotions, whatever their apparent source, proceed from this invisible hand. No created mind or heart can teach you what this divine action will do in you; you will learn it by successive experience. Your life unceasingly flows into this incomprehensible abyss, where we have but to love and accept as best that which the present moment brings, with perfect confidence in this divine action which of itself can only work you good.
Yes, my Beloved, all souls might attain supernatural, admirable, inconceivably sublime states if they would but submit themselves to Thy divine action! Yes, if they would but yield to this divine hand they would attain eminent sanctity. All could reach it, since it is offered to all. You have but to open your heart and it will enter of itself: for there is no soul which does not possess in Thee, my God, its infinitely perfect model; no soul in which Thy divine action labors not unceasingly to render it like unto Thy image. If they were faithful they would all live, act, speak divinely; they need only copy one another; the divine action would signalize each one of them through the most ordinary things.
How, O my God! can I cause Thy creatures to relish what I advance? Must I, possessing a treasure capable of enriching all, see souls perish in their poverty? Must I see them die like desert plants when I point out to them the source of living waters? Come, simple souls, who have no feeling of devotion whatever, no talent, not even the first elements of instruction,—you who understand nothing of spiritual terms, who are filled with admiration and astonishment by the eloquence of the learned,—come and I will teach you the secret of excelling these brilliant intellects; and I will make perfection so attainable that you will find it within you, about you, around you, at every step. I will unite you to God, and He will hold you by the hand from the moment you begin to practise what I tell you. Come, not to learn the chart of this spiritual country, but to possess it, and to walk at ease therein without fear of going astray. Come, not to study the theory of divine grace, nor to learn what it has effected in all ages and is still effecting, but to be simply the subjects of its operations. You have no need to learn and ingenuously repeat the words addressed to others: divine grace shall utter to you alone all that you require.
[CHAPTER XII.]
The Divine Action alone can sanctify us, for it forms us after the Divine Model of our Perfection.
The divine action executes in time the designs of the eternal Wisdom in regard to all things. God alone can make known to each soul the design which it is destined to realize. Though you read the will of God in regard to others, this knowledge cannot direct you in anything. In the Word, in God Himself, is the design after which you should be formed, and after which you are modelled by the divine action. In the Word the divine action finds that to which every soul may be conformed. Holy Scripture contains a portion of this design, and the work of the Holy Spirit in souls completes it after the model which the Word presents. Is it not evident that the only secret for receiving the impress of this eternal design is to be passively submissive in His hands, and that no intellectual effort or speculation will help us to attain it? Is it not manifest that skill, intelligence, or subtlety of mind will not effect this work, but passive self-abandonment to the divine will, yielding ourselves like metal to the mould, like canvas to the brush, or like stone to the sculptor? It is clear that a knowledge of the divine mysteries which the will of God effects in all ages is not what renders us conformable to the design which the Word has conceived for us. No: it is the impress of the divine Hand; and this imprint is not graven in the mind through the medium of thought, but upon the will through its submission to the will of God.
The wisdom of the simple soul consists in contentment with what is suitable to her, in confining herself to the sphere of her duties, and in never going beyond its boundary. She is not curious to know the secrets of the divine economy: she is content with God’s will in her regard, never striving to decipher its hidden meaning by conjecture or comparison, desiring to know no more than each moment reveals, listening to the voice of the Word when it speaks in the depth of her heart, never asking what the Spouse of her soul utters to others, contenting herself with what she receives in the depth of her soul; so that from moment to moment all things, however insignificant or whatever their nature, sanctify her unconsciously to herself. Thus the Beloved speaks to His spouse by the palpable effects of His action, which the spouse does not curiously study, but accepts with loving gratitude. Therefore the spirituality of this soul is simple, most solid, and interwoven with her whole being. Neither tumultuous thoughts nor words influence her conduct; for these, when not the instruments of divine grace, only inflate the mind. Many there are who assign an important part to intellect in piety, yet it is of little account therein, and not unfrequently prejudicial. We must make use of that only which God sends us to do and suffer. Yet many of us leave this divine essential to occupy our minds with the historic wonders of the divine work, instead of increasing these wonders by our fidelity.