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Meditation 3 - Concerning Indifference to Created Things
Preparatory Prayer as on page x
First Prelude
Composition of Place — "Imagine you see God in His majesty and greatness seated on a throne, and that you hear a voice which says: I am the Beginning and the End (Apoc. 22:13). Likewise you can picture an immense sea from which many rivers flow and into which all the rivers return. This sea represents God's goodness, from which all creatures come, and they return to Him. You are one of these creatures which has come from God and you must return to Him."
Second Prelude
My God and Lord, I beg Thee to give me grace to behave always with a holy indifference regarding objects of our senses, and to select and prefer only what better serves Thy honor and glory and the salvation of my soul. Amen.
Words of Saint Ignatius: "Other things on earth were made for man's sake and to help him in pursuing the end for which he was created."
"Thou hast subjected all things under his feet . . ." (Psalm 8:8) They are like a step-ladder, like rungs for climbing. God put them under our feet, and man has placed them higher than his heart and above shoulders and head, and they cause his downfall.
(Continuing with Saint Ignatius): "Consequently one should use them to the extent that they help him reach his end, and he should withdraw from them to the extent that they hinder him in that pursuit. One must become indifferent to everything created wherever a scope of free will is allowed and is not prohibited; so that for our part we no more want health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than the experience of being dishonorable, a long life rather than a short one — and so in all other things, desiring only and choosing only what better leads to the end for which we were created."
Explanation — One who fails to attain his last End, loses it either because he is very attached to certain things of the world, or because he hates other things too much. I say attached — referring to comforts, satisfactions of the body, good things of life, riches, the honor and esteem of men. Such things attract us to pursue them, even by offending God, so that one loses his last End.
The loathing refers to discomforts, troubles, pains, poverty, suffering of contempt, abuse, sickness, death. These cause a man sadness and dread, and also get him to turn from God and thus fail to attain his last End.
My soul, as you want to play safe about your last End, you must put your heart in a condition of proper balance and indifference, so that you are always prompt and ready to get rid of even the best liked things, whenever they serve to obstruct your reaching your last End, and when things help you gain it, you must always be prompt and ready to embrace them, even things most arduous and distasteful.
**First Point**
The supreme ownership God has over me calls for this total indifference of heart toward all things that are not of God — Your end, O my soul, on this earth is nothing else than that you love and serve God with perfection. But to so love and serve Him, is nothing else than to fulfill the Divine Will with perfection. Indeed this is true, my soul; to love and serve God perfectly is no more than to perfectly fulfill His Will. Now this cannot be accomplished unless you are ready and willing with complete indifference and proper balance to have health or sickness, honor or contempt, riches or poverty. Weigh this truth well.
(1) It is not your business to determine the way of serving God. It belongs to His Divine Majesty to determine that. It is your business to serve Him according to His wishes, not according to your own. He is Master and you are servant. It belongs to the Master to command, to the servant to obey. Even in Heaven this order is observed.
Among the angels some are always before God's throne praising Him, adoring Him, and blessing Him. Others hover about the earth as guardians of men. This angel is assigned to a powerful king, that one to a poor laborer. Each one serves God the way he is commanded. Will God perhaps have less authority on earth than He has in Heaven? When you have grasped this truth well, let us take a step further.
(2) God's ownership is without limits. He has authority to order this or that way of serving Him, as suits Him best. He is your God and you are His creature. Who will have the boldness or even the ability to limit His Power? A potter follows his own wishes in disposing of the vessel he has made. Is it not right for God to be able to dispose of the man that is His creature, just as a potter disposes of his vessel?
God has an owner's right to put one in the state that suits His Divine Majesty best; and wherever He may put you, you are bound to honor, serve and love Him.
(3) Serving God as His Majesty wishes is simply to love Him and serve Him with perfection, and as a result attain our last End. Everything else is wasted business. If some duty or office has been assigned to you, you ought to fulfill your obligation with care and love for God, and not turn aside to other cares. This is serving God according to His Will.
If your inner self is all wrapped up in darkness, in temptation, in affliction, in desolation, it is necessary for you to adjust yourself to this arrangement of Providence and do so out of love for God. This is serving Him according to His pleasure. If the world hates you, criticizes you, insults you with abuses, suffer it in silence out of love for God. That is serving Him as He wishes. The more you part from this way of life, the more you part from your last End.
Affective Acts
(1) Acknowledge God's supreme dominion — It is true, O Sovereign Good! Thou art my God and my supreme Lord. Thy role is to command, and mine is to obey. I am obliged to serve Thee, but in the way that pleases Thee. I acknowledge Thy supreme ownership and I adore it profoundly. Alas for the self-willed servant! To choose to serve God according to our impulses and not as He wants to be served, is treating God as the servant and wanting to be His master. What reward might one expect for a disorder of this kind? Or rather, what punishment should one not expect and fear?
(2) Repentance — How is it possible, O Infinite One, that there should be a single person who strives to serve Thee and love Thee according to his own wishes and not according to Yours? Sad to say, there are many, many such fools, and I see that I am obliged to admit with shame that up to now I have been one of them. I want to love Thee and serve Thee with health, by no means with sickness.
I wish to serve Thee and love Thee, but just when I am loved and honored, not ever in the midst of experiencing contempt, insults and persecutions. I want to serve Thee and love Thee, but as long as things go my way and tender feelings of devotion delight my heart; but not in any state of darkness, desolation, or trial. Is this serving and loving God as His Majesty wishes? Ah! What sad shape I am in! What have I been doing?
**Second Point**
God's Providence demands that I have a heart of holy indifference — As it is arduous and difficult to gain one's last End without complete and holy indifference, it is likewise so much the easier to gain this End with it. To thoroughly convince yourself of this, weigh this truth:
(1) God is Infinite Wisdom and Knowledge. He knows and understands the means that lead with all security to the attainment of your last End. There are all kinds of means serviceable for the gaining of your last End — health and sickness, honor and dishonor, an honored calling and a lowly occupation — provided they are put to good use.
Now if you know the answer, tell me: What will lead you most securely to your last End? Is it the enjoyment of robust health, or is it a sickly condition? Is it a state of being honored and loved, or one of being insulted and hated? Is it holding a high post, or having a humble employment? This is something you do not know, nor do I, nor does anybody else in the world. All those things are mysteries that no perception can penetrate except only the perception of Him Who is Almighty.
(2) God is Infinite Love, Who always arranges for souls the surest means for reaching their last End — surest, provided they always keep themselves in this holy indifference and proper balance. God deals with souls as a mother who fondly loves her tender child.
As a true mother is incapable of giving poison to her beloved child, even more so is God incapable of providing anything harmful for a soul that surrenders itself to Him with indifference. O my soul, become for once fully convinced that if God visits you with illness, that is the surest way then for leading you to reach your last End; when He allows you to be despised and belittled, when He places you in darkness, in desolation, in trials, that is the surest way for you to advance to your last End.
(3) God is Infinite Power, and He leads infallibly to its last End the soul constant in holy indifference and proper balance. And who will be so bold and so daring that he can put an obstacle before God? Neither an angel, nor a man, nor Heaven, nor earth, nor all hell can fight against Infinite Power.
You alone, O my soul, you alone can obstruct and can defeat His loving designs by withdrawing from the order He has arranged concerning you by your turning away from holy indifference. But if you stay firm in it, it is as certain that you will reach your last End as it is certain that God is a God of Infinite Love, of Infinite Wisdom and of Infinite Power.
God is your Father Who loves you from eternity. A father naturally loves his son; but though he loves him and desires every benefit for him, he does not know what is most suitable; and if he does know this, he cannot always do what he wants and what he knows would benefit his son. But God, Who is such a loving Father, has the wish, the knowledge and the power to do what is best suited for you. And will you fail to conform yourself? Will you resist? Will you murmur? Will you complain to His Fatherly Providence?
Affective Acts
(1) Confidence — Oh, how consoling is this truth! He Who rules over me is Infinite Wisdom, Who knows and understands the means that are most suitable for me. He Who guides me is Infinite Power, and there is no one who can push me down if He holds me up and strengthens me. He Who loves me is Infinite Love, Who from hour to hour provides the means best for me. With this knowledge, can I admit any mistrust into my heart?
Let that never happen, O my God. I surrender myself completely to Thy Fatherly Providence; and fully confident, I make this assertion: Thou seekest me for Thy company in Paradise, and wish me to be in a high rank of glory. Thy goodness is so great as to wish all this for me and so I also hope for the same thing. Thou art my Father and Thy Love will lead me to that wonderful happiness.
(2) Self-doubt — But how can I hope for something so wonderful? No one can get an assurance that he will gain something so wonderful, so great, except the souls which serve and love God as He wishes and who walk in His presence with perfect and holy indifference. Am I one such soul?
Oh how far removed from me is such a good disposition! What joy do I not show amid praises and honor, amid prosperity and riches! What sadness do I not feel when I suffer contempt, poverty, and misery! How much satisfaction my heart gets in time of tender devotion and consolations! With what pleasure does it carry out what is commanded, if it is according to my wish and inclination; and with what displeasure, if it is what I do not like!
Is this perhaps that holy indifference which is required for perfect love? O Jesus, have pity on me! A heart so poorly disposed is not capable of loving Thee, and one can say that the first stone of the building of holiness and salvation has not yet been laid . . .
**Third Point**
Divine Justice calls for holy indifference and a proper balance in my heart — If you, O my soul, do not submit to the provision of Divine Providence, and if you do not embrace in humble submission the means that Providence keeps providing for your last End, you will fall into the hands of Divine Justice. And what will be the result? A heap of misfortunes for which you cannot weep enough. Reflect well on this and what follows.
(1) It is quite certain that such a soul must of necessity suffer in this world much more than another soul. You greatly deceive yourself, my soul, if you imagine you can escape the troubles which God's Love holds in store for you as means to your last End. You will never be able to. You will suffer, and you will necessarily have to suffer the pains and ailments, the contempt and other mistreatment which from eternity God has assigned for you to suffer.
"You will either fulfill what God wants, or you will suffer what you do not want." — Saint Augustine.
If you maintain an indifferent heart and bear everything with patience, you will give God pleasure and He will fortify you with an inflow of His graces. He will give you a continual peace and calm and will make the way of the cross something easy and sweet for you. If you neglect this holy indifference and bear troubles impatiently, you will displease God and He will deny you all His strengthening, supporting help and every kind of peace and consolation, letting you fall under the weight of your cross.
(2) It is very certain that for all eternity you will lose that high degree of glory unless you adopt the means God has appointed. If your heart is not indifferent and you do not use such means, adopting them willingly, you will weary yourself in vain and will lose your last End. It is certain that you are in danger of not gaining your eternal salvation, not even a lower grade of glory.
A soul that has not this holy indifference, falls out of (moral) necessity into many grave temptations. In such circumstances, who is not drawn downward by anger, by resentment, by faintheartedness and melancholy, by pride and fear of contempt? And who is not moved by impulsiveness and self-will, by interior upsets and disorder, and by the rebellion of uncontrolled passions?
Ah, to overcome these problems requires a particular help of God. Now will He give it to a soul unwilling to submit to His plans, to a soul who, full of anger, rejects the means which God had provided, a soul unwilling to serve except in its own way, unwilling to acknowledge Him as Master and Lord, and who insolently resists God's designs? Let a man place his hopes in the One Whom he can trust, for the struggle is quite dangerous.
Affective Acts
(1) Humiliation — O Sovereign Good, my God and my Lord! How many faults I find in my soul at this hour! What blindness there is in my thinking! What disorder in my will! I regard pains and ailments as the greatest of evils, and Thou valuest them as most effective means for my sanctification. When I'm treated with contempt I count it to be the worst thing in the world, and Thou dost rate it as the best means for my exaltation in Heaven.
I call desolation and trial my ruin; and Thou sayest that they are to fashion the greatest part of my glory in paradise. So it is: My judgment has deceived me and the blindness of my intellect has reached this extreme. ("I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost. Seek thy servant . . ." Psalm 118:176). But alas! My misery does not end here; for the blindness of my intellect matches the corruption of my will.
Concupiscence, comfort, honor, esteem from creatures, sweet peace and tranquility of heart, obedience agreeing with my wishes — these are the only things to which I am inclined. Everything else repels and frightens me. I'm always stretching out both hands to poison, and withdrawing from the medicine that could cure me.
(2) Resolution — What is the remedy for this? I have learned two things today, O my God. The first is that it is necessary to serve Thee and love Thee in the way Thou dost desire, not in the way I wish. The second is that I cannot serve Thee nor love Thee that way if I have an indifferent heart and if I do not make use of the means that Thou assigns to me. Without those means, I cannot serve Thee nor love Thee, nor become holy, nor be saved.
Considering how true this is, I surrender at this moment before Thy Divine Majesty, my fondness for the creatures I like, as well as my distaste for what I do not like. Honor and contempt, health and sickness, consolation and grief, this or that occupation — these will be indifferent matters for me.
Let nature groan and complain as much as it wishes, grace is to win from now on. This, then, is my resolve, O my God and Lord. I choose to serve Thee and love Thee in the way Thou dost will, not in the way I like. This is the way I will employ the days, the hours, and all the minutes that remain in my life.
(3) Prayer for grace — Oh how fortunate is the soul with these dispositions! It has the basis of holiness; it has in fact the true essence of it, which is perfect charity. It is travelling the right way that leads to union with God. Oh, who will preserve me in this state? Not I, O my Jesus! I cannot do so much! My weakness is too great. My fickleness is too deep-rooted. Only Thy Almighty Power can remedy my misery and keep me upright.
I turn the most ardent sighs of my heart to Thee, O my Jesus! Take from me all desire and love for those creatures that just appeal to my selfishness. Rid me of all fear and opposition to what displeases my selfish temper. Put me in a state of total holy indifference, and grant that I will desire nothing but to please Thee, and fear nothing but Thy displeasure, O Jesus. O Father of mercies! Assist me with Thy powerful grace.
Now pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary and the Concluding Prayers[i][/i] as on page xi.
Preparatory Prayer as on page x
First Prelude
Composition of Place — "Imagine you see God in His majesty and greatness seated on a throne, and that you hear a voice which says: I am the Beginning and the End (Apoc. 22:13). Likewise you can picture an immense sea from which many rivers flow and into which all the rivers return. This sea represents God's goodness, from which all creatures come, and they return to Him. You are one of these creatures which has come from God and you must return to Him."
Second Prelude
My God and Lord, I beg Thee to give me grace to behave always with a holy indifference regarding objects of our senses, and to select and prefer only what better serves Thy honor and glory and the salvation of my soul. Amen.
Words of Saint Ignatius: "Other things on earth were made for man's sake and to help him in pursuing the end for which he was created."
"Thou hast subjected all things under his feet . . ." (Psalm 8:8) They are like a step-ladder, like rungs for climbing. God put them under our feet, and man has placed them higher than his heart and above shoulders and head, and they cause his downfall.
(Continuing with Saint Ignatius): "Consequently one should use them to the extent that they help him reach his end, and he should withdraw from them to the extent that they hinder him in that pursuit. One must become indifferent to everything created wherever a scope of free will is allowed and is not prohibited; so that for our part we no more want health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than the experience of being dishonorable, a long life rather than a short one — and so in all other things, desiring only and choosing only what better leads to the end for which we were created."
Explanation — One who fails to attain his last End, loses it either because he is very attached to certain things of the world, or because he hates other things too much. I say attached — referring to comforts, satisfactions of the body, good things of life, riches, the honor and esteem of men. Such things attract us to pursue them, even by offending God, so that one loses his last End.
The loathing refers to discomforts, troubles, pains, poverty, suffering of contempt, abuse, sickness, death. These cause a man sadness and dread, and also get him to turn from God and thus fail to attain his last End.
My soul, as you want to play safe about your last End, you must put your heart in a condition of proper balance and indifference, so that you are always prompt and ready to get rid of even the best liked things, whenever they serve to obstruct your reaching your last End, and when things help you gain it, you must always be prompt and ready to embrace them, even things most arduous and distasteful.
**First Point**
The supreme ownership God has over me calls for this total indifference of heart toward all things that are not of God — Your end, O my soul, on this earth is nothing else than that you love and serve God with perfection. But to so love and serve Him, is nothing else than to fulfill the Divine Will with perfection. Indeed this is true, my soul; to love and serve God perfectly is no more than to perfectly fulfill His Will. Now this cannot be accomplished unless you are ready and willing with complete indifference and proper balance to have health or sickness, honor or contempt, riches or poverty. Weigh this truth well.
(1) It is not your business to determine the way of serving God. It belongs to His Divine Majesty to determine that. It is your business to serve Him according to His wishes, not according to your own. He is Master and you are servant. It belongs to the Master to command, to the servant to obey. Even in Heaven this order is observed.
Among the angels some are always before God's throne praising Him, adoring Him, and blessing Him. Others hover about the earth as guardians of men. This angel is assigned to a powerful king, that one to a poor laborer. Each one serves God the way he is commanded. Will God perhaps have less authority on earth than He has in Heaven? When you have grasped this truth well, let us take a step further.
(2) God's ownership is without limits. He has authority to order this or that way of serving Him, as suits Him best. He is your God and you are His creature. Who will have the boldness or even the ability to limit His Power? A potter follows his own wishes in disposing of the vessel he has made. Is it not right for God to be able to dispose of the man that is His creature, just as a potter disposes of his vessel?
God has an owner's right to put one in the state that suits His Divine Majesty best; and wherever He may put you, you are bound to honor, serve and love Him.
(3) Serving God as His Majesty wishes is simply to love Him and serve Him with perfection, and as a result attain our last End. Everything else is wasted business. If some duty or office has been assigned to you, you ought to fulfill your obligation with care and love for God, and not turn aside to other cares. This is serving God according to His Will.
If your inner self is all wrapped up in darkness, in temptation, in affliction, in desolation, it is necessary for you to adjust yourself to this arrangement of Providence and do so out of love for God. This is serving Him according to His pleasure. If the world hates you, criticizes you, insults you with abuses, suffer it in silence out of love for God. That is serving Him as He wishes. The more you part from this way of life, the more you part from your last End.
Affective Acts
(1) Acknowledge God's supreme dominion — It is true, O Sovereign Good! Thou art my God and my supreme Lord. Thy role is to command, and mine is to obey. I am obliged to serve Thee, but in the way that pleases Thee. I acknowledge Thy supreme ownership and I adore it profoundly. Alas for the self-willed servant! To choose to serve God according to our impulses and not as He wants to be served, is treating God as the servant and wanting to be His master. What reward might one expect for a disorder of this kind? Or rather, what punishment should one not expect and fear?
(2) Repentance — How is it possible, O Infinite One, that there should be a single person who strives to serve Thee and love Thee according to his own wishes and not according to Yours? Sad to say, there are many, many such fools, and I see that I am obliged to admit with shame that up to now I have been one of them. I want to love Thee and serve Thee with health, by no means with sickness.
I wish to serve Thee and love Thee, but just when I am loved and honored, not ever in the midst of experiencing contempt, insults and persecutions. I want to serve Thee and love Thee, but as long as things go my way and tender feelings of devotion delight my heart; but not in any state of darkness, desolation, or trial. Is this serving and loving God as His Majesty wishes? Ah! What sad shape I am in! What have I been doing?
**Second Point**
God's Providence demands that I have a heart of holy indifference — As it is arduous and difficult to gain one's last End without complete and holy indifference, it is likewise so much the easier to gain this End with it. To thoroughly convince yourself of this, weigh this truth:
(1) God is Infinite Wisdom and Knowledge. He knows and understands the means that lead with all security to the attainment of your last End. There are all kinds of means serviceable for the gaining of your last End — health and sickness, honor and dishonor, an honored calling and a lowly occupation — provided they are put to good use.
Now if you know the answer, tell me: What will lead you most securely to your last End? Is it the enjoyment of robust health, or is it a sickly condition? Is it a state of being honored and loved, or one of being insulted and hated? Is it holding a high post, or having a humble employment? This is something you do not know, nor do I, nor does anybody else in the world. All those things are mysteries that no perception can penetrate except only the perception of Him Who is Almighty.
(2) God is Infinite Love, Who always arranges for souls the surest means for reaching their last End — surest, provided they always keep themselves in this holy indifference and proper balance. God deals with souls as a mother who fondly loves her tender child.
As a true mother is incapable of giving poison to her beloved child, even more so is God incapable of providing anything harmful for a soul that surrenders itself to Him with indifference. O my soul, become for once fully convinced that if God visits you with illness, that is the surest way then for leading you to reach your last End; when He allows you to be despised and belittled, when He places you in darkness, in desolation, in trials, that is the surest way for you to advance to your last End.
(3) God is Infinite Power, and He leads infallibly to its last End the soul constant in holy indifference and proper balance. And who will be so bold and so daring that he can put an obstacle before God? Neither an angel, nor a man, nor Heaven, nor earth, nor all hell can fight against Infinite Power.
You alone, O my soul, you alone can obstruct and can defeat His loving designs by withdrawing from the order He has arranged concerning you by your turning away from holy indifference. But if you stay firm in it, it is as certain that you will reach your last End as it is certain that God is a God of Infinite Love, of Infinite Wisdom and of Infinite Power.
God is your Father Who loves you from eternity. A father naturally loves his son; but though he loves him and desires every benefit for him, he does not know what is most suitable; and if he does know this, he cannot always do what he wants and what he knows would benefit his son. But God, Who is such a loving Father, has the wish, the knowledge and the power to do what is best suited for you. And will you fail to conform yourself? Will you resist? Will you murmur? Will you complain to His Fatherly Providence?
Affective Acts
(1) Confidence — Oh, how consoling is this truth! He Who rules over me is Infinite Wisdom, Who knows and understands the means that are most suitable for me. He Who guides me is Infinite Power, and there is no one who can push me down if He holds me up and strengthens me. He Who loves me is Infinite Love, Who from hour to hour provides the means best for me. With this knowledge, can I admit any mistrust into my heart?
Let that never happen, O my God. I surrender myself completely to Thy Fatherly Providence; and fully confident, I make this assertion: Thou seekest me for Thy company in Paradise, and wish me to be in a high rank of glory. Thy goodness is so great as to wish all this for me and so I also hope for the same thing. Thou art my Father and Thy Love will lead me to that wonderful happiness.
(2) Self-doubt — But how can I hope for something so wonderful? No one can get an assurance that he will gain something so wonderful, so great, except the souls which serve and love God as He wishes and who walk in His presence with perfect and holy indifference. Am I one such soul?
Oh how far removed from me is such a good disposition! What joy do I not show amid praises and honor, amid prosperity and riches! What sadness do I not feel when I suffer contempt, poverty, and misery! How much satisfaction my heart gets in time of tender devotion and consolations! With what pleasure does it carry out what is commanded, if it is according to my wish and inclination; and with what displeasure, if it is what I do not like!
Is this perhaps that holy indifference which is required for perfect love? O Jesus, have pity on me! A heart so poorly disposed is not capable of loving Thee, and one can say that the first stone of the building of holiness and salvation has not yet been laid . . .
**Third Point**
Divine Justice calls for holy indifference and a proper balance in my heart — If you, O my soul, do not submit to the provision of Divine Providence, and if you do not embrace in humble submission the means that Providence keeps providing for your last End, you will fall into the hands of Divine Justice. And what will be the result? A heap of misfortunes for which you cannot weep enough. Reflect well on this and what follows.
(1) It is quite certain that such a soul must of necessity suffer in this world much more than another soul. You greatly deceive yourself, my soul, if you imagine you can escape the troubles which God's Love holds in store for you as means to your last End. You will never be able to. You will suffer, and you will necessarily have to suffer the pains and ailments, the contempt and other mistreatment which from eternity God has assigned for you to suffer.
"You will either fulfill what God wants, or you will suffer what you do not want." — Saint Augustine.
If you maintain an indifferent heart and bear everything with patience, you will give God pleasure and He will fortify you with an inflow of His graces. He will give you a continual peace and calm and will make the way of the cross something easy and sweet for you. If you neglect this holy indifference and bear troubles impatiently, you will displease God and He will deny you all His strengthening, supporting help and every kind of peace and consolation, letting you fall under the weight of your cross.
(2) It is very certain that for all eternity you will lose that high degree of glory unless you adopt the means God has appointed. If your heart is not indifferent and you do not use such means, adopting them willingly, you will weary yourself in vain and will lose your last End. It is certain that you are in danger of not gaining your eternal salvation, not even a lower grade of glory.
A soul that has not this holy indifference, falls out of (moral) necessity into many grave temptations. In such circumstances, who is not drawn downward by anger, by resentment, by faintheartedness and melancholy, by pride and fear of contempt? And who is not moved by impulsiveness and self-will, by interior upsets and disorder, and by the rebellion of uncontrolled passions?
Ah, to overcome these problems requires a particular help of God. Now will He give it to a soul unwilling to submit to His plans, to a soul who, full of anger, rejects the means which God had provided, a soul unwilling to serve except in its own way, unwilling to acknowledge Him as Master and Lord, and who insolently resists God's designs? Let a man place his hopes in the One Whom he can trust, for the struggle is quite dangerous.
Affective Acts
(1) Humiliation — O Sovereign Good, my God and my Lord! How many faults I find in my soul at this hour! What blindness there is in my thinking! What disorder in my will! I regard pains and ailments as the greatest of evils, and Thou valuest them as most effective means for my sanctification. When I'm treated with contempt I count it to be the worst thing in the world, and Thou dost rate it as the best means for my exaltation in Heaven.
I call desolation and trial my ruin; and Thou sayest that they are to fashion the greatest part of my glory in paradise. So it is: My judgment has deceived me and the blindness of my intellect has reached this extreme. ("I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost. Seek thy servant . . ." Psalm 118:176). But alas! My misery does not end here; for the blindness of my intellect matches the corruption of my will.
Concupiscence, comfort, honor, esteem from creatures, sweet peace and tranquility of heart, obedience agreeing with my wishes — these are the only things to which I am inclined. Everything else repels and frightens me. I'm always stretching out both hands to poison, and withdrawing from the medicine that could cure me.
(2) Resolution — What is the remedy for this? I have learned two things today, O my God. The first is that it is necessary to serve Thee and love Thee in the way Thou dost desire, not in the way I wish. The second is that I cannot serve Thee nor love Thee that way if I have an indifferent heart and if I do not make use of the means that Thou assigns to me. Without those means, I cannot serve Thee nor love Thee, nor become holy, nor be saved.
Considering how true this is, I surrender at this moment before Thy Divine Majesty, my fondness for the creatures I like, as well as my distaste for what I do not like. Honor and contempt, health and sickness, consolation and grief, this or that occupation — these will be indifferent matters for me.
Let nature groan and complain as much as it wishes, grace is to win from now on. This, then, is my resolve, O my God and Lord. I choose to serve Thee and love Thee in the way Thou dost will, not in the way I like. This is the way I will employ the days, the hours, and all the minutes that remain in my life.
(3) Prayer for grace — Oh how fortunate is the soul with these dispositions! It has the basis of holiness; it has in fact the true essence of it, which is perfect charity. It is travelling the right way that leads to union with God. Oh, who will preserve me in this state? Not I, O my Jesus! I cannot do so much! My weakness is too great. My fickleness is too deep-rooted. Only Thy Almighty Power can remedy my misery and keep me upright.
I turn the most ardent sighs of my heart to Thee, O my Jesus! Take from me all desire and love for those creatures that just appeal to my selfishness. Rid me of all fear and opposition to what displeases my selfish temper. Put me in a state of total holy indifference, and grant that I will desire nothing but to please Thee, and fear nothing but Thy displeasure, O Jesus. O Father of mercies! Assist me with Thy powerful grace.
Now pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary and the Concluding Prayers[i][/i] as on page xi.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre