Abandonment; or, Absolute Surrender to Divine ProvidenceCaussade, Jean Pierre de
Religion
Abandonment; or, Absolute Surrender to Divine Providence
Caussade, Jean Pierre de
Mysticism -- Catholic Church; Spiritual life -- Catholic Church
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.
_CHAPTER IV._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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