The supernatural prudence of the divine Spirit, the principle of these attractions, unerringly seizes the end and intimate relations of each event, and, all unknown to the soul, so disposes them for her spiritual welfare that all which opposes itself thereto must inevitably be destroyed.
[CHAPTER VII.]
The Soul who abandons Herself to God has no Need to justify Herself by Words or Actions: the Divine Action justifies Her.
The broad, solid, firm rock upon which the faithful soul stands sheltered from tides and storms is the order of the divine will, which is ever present with us, veiled under crosses or the most ordinary duties. Behind these shadows is hidden God’s Hand, which sustains and upholds those who abandon themselves to Him.
The moment the soul is firmly established in this perfect self-abandonment she is henceforth safe from the contradiction of tongues, for she ceases to have anything to do or say in her own defence. Since the work is God’s, from no other source must its justification be sought. Its consequences and effects will sufficiently justify it. We have but to leave it to its own development. Dies diei eructat verbum.
When we are no longer guided by our own ideas we need not defend ourselves by words. Our words can only represent our ideas, and where an absence of ideas is admitted no words are needed. Of what avail are they? To give a reason for what we do? But we know not this reason; it is hidden in the principle which animates our actions, and which impresses us only in a most ineffable manner.
We must therefore leave to the results of our actions the task of justifying their principle. All is metely sustained in this divine procession; everything therein has a firm and solid basis, and the reason for that which precedes is manifest in the result which follows. It is no longer a life of thought, imagination, multiplied words: these no longer occupy, nourish, or sustain the soul. She no longer knows where she walks, or where her path may lie in the future; she ceases to incite herself with reflections to bear the toils and fatigues of the route; her strength lies in an intimate conviction of her own weakness. A way is opened to her feet; she enters and walks unhesitatingly therein with pure, straightforward, simple faith; she follows the straight path of the commandments, leaning upon God Himself, whom she finds at every turn of the way; and this God, the sole object of her life, will take her justification upon Himself, and so manifest His presence that she will be avenged of her detractors.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
God gives Life to the Soul abandoned to Him by Means which apparently lead only to Death.
There is a time when God wills to be the life of the soul and work out her perfection Himself in a hidden and secret manner: then all her own ideas, lights, efforts, researches, reasonings, become a source of illusion. And when the soul, after many sad experiences, is finally taught the uselessness of her self-activity, she finds that God has hidden and obstructed all other channels of life that she may live in Him alone. Then, convinced of her nothingness, and that her self-activity is prejudicial to her, she abandons herself completely to God and relies only upon Him. God then becomes a source of life to the soul, not by means of thoughts, revelations, reflections (these are now become a source of illusion), but effectively by the reality of His grace hidden under the strangest appearances. The divine operation being invisible to the soul, she receives its virtue, its substance, under circumstances which she feels will prove her ruin. There is no remedy for this obscurity; we must remain buried therein; for here, in this night of faith, God gives Himself to us, and with Himself all things. Henceforth the soul is but a blind subject; or rather she may be likened to a sick man who, ignorant of the virtue of his remedies, and feeling only their bitterness, frequently imagines they must lead to death; the exhaustion and crisis which follow them seem to justify his fears: nevertheless, under this semblance of death he receives health, and he continues to accept the remedies at the word of the physician.