Abandonment; or, Absolute Surrender to Divine Providence · 30 of 35

Book Third, 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 145 -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.

Thus souls abandoned to God’s will take no heed of their infirmities, except those of a nature sufficiently evident and grave to require care and treatment. The languor and impotence of faithful souls are but illusions and semblances which they must courageously face. God sends and permits them to exercise their faith and self-abandonment, and in these virtues lies the soul’s true remedy. She must go on generously, utterly ignoring her infirmities, accepting all that comes to her to do or suffer in the order of God, never hesitating to treat her body as we do those beasts of burden only destined to spend their lives going hither and thither at our will. This treatment is more efficacious than all that delicate care which only weakens the vigor of the mind. This strength of purpose has an indescribable virtue and power to sustain a feeble body; and a year of this noble and generous life is worth a century of selfish fears and care.

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We must endeavor to habitually maintain an air of childlike gentleness and good-will. Ah! what can we fear from this divine fortune? Guided, sustained, and protected by the Providence of God, the whole exterior conduct of His children should be nothing less than heroic. The alarming objects which oppose their progress are naught in themselves: they are only sent to embellish their lives by still more glorious actions. They entangle them in embarrassments of every kind, whence human prudence can see no issue, and, feeling its weakness, stops short, confounded. Then does the divine fortune gloriously manifest what it is for souls who wholly trust therein. It extricates them more marvellously than the writers of fiction with unrestrained imagination in the leisure and privacy of their study unraveled the intrigues and perils of their imaginary heroes, bringing them invariably to a happy end. More admirably still does it guide them safely through the perils of death, the snares of demons, the terrors of temptation, the fears of hell. It elevates these souls to heaven, and they are all the real subject of those mystic histories more beautiful and curious than any ever invented by the crude imagination of man.

Then onward, my soul, through perils and fears, guided, directed, and sustained by the invisible, all-powerful, unerring Hand of divine Providence. Let us go on fearlessly in joy and peace to the end, turning obstacles into victories, remembering that it was to struggle and conquer that we enrolled ourselves under His banner. Exivit vincens ut vinceret, and every step under His guidance is a victory. The book of souls lies open before the Holy Spirit, and their history is still written, for holy souls will furnish material for its pages to the end of the world. This history is but the relation of God’s operations and designs upon man, and it depends upon ourselves whether we shall appear in its pages and continue its narration by uniting our sufferings and actions to His divine will.

No; let nothing we have to do or suffer alarm us: it can cause us no loss; it is only sent us that we may furnish material for that holy history, which is increasing day by day.

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