12. James 2322 24. 2 Peter 1:11, NRSV
to speak a word of grace that shall be health to your soul.
Certainly God will again lift up your head and cause the bones that have been broken to rejoice."!
. 38. What is the last advice that you would give those who have fallen from grace?
. Be exemplary in all things, particularly in outward things (as in dress), in little things, in the use of your money
(avoiding every needless expense), in deep, steady earnestness, and in the consistency and usefulness of all your life in the world. You shall be "a light shining in a dark place."" You shall daily "grow in grace,"* until "entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ will be richly provided for you."™ Endnotes 1. See 1 Corinthians 12:14-26.
13. Exodus 5:17, NRSV 2. 1 Thessalonians 5:12, NRSV 14. John 6:12
3. Philippians 2:5
15. James 1:19
4. 1 Peter 5:5, NRSV 16. Proverbs 10:19, NRSV 5. 1 John 4:1, NRSV 17. 1 Timothy 5:22
18. Matthew 6:22
7. Isaiah 8:19-20 19. See Luke 9:23.
8. Romans 3:31
20. See John 17:1-2.
9. Romans 10:4
21. See Psalm 51:8.
10. Isaiah 42:21
2222) Petepaz9 11. Philippians 4:8
2322 Peteri318 12. James 2322 24. 2 Peter 1:11, NRSV
Most of the preceding advice is supported in the following reflections, which, next to the holy Scriptures, I commend to your deep and frequent consideration:
(1) The sea is an excellent image of the fullness of God and of the blessed Spirit. For as the rivers all return to the sea, so the bodies, souls, and good works of the righteous return to God, to live there in God's eternal home.
Although all the graces of God depend on God's abundance, God is generally pleased to attach them to the prayers, the teaching, and the holiness of those whom
God gives to be our examples in faith. By strong though invisible attractions, God draws some souls through their relationships with others.
The kinships formed by grace far surpass those formed by nature.
The truly devout show that passions flow just as naturally from true as from false love. They are deeply aware of the goods and evils of those whom they love for God's sake. But only those who understand the language of love can comprehend this.
The depth of the soul may be calm, even while we are in many outward troubles. In the same way, the bottom of the sea is calm while the surface is in turmoil.
The best helps to growth in grace are the abuses, the insults, and the losses that come our way. We should receive them with all thankfulness. We prefer them to all others because they are not our doing. They come upon us only as a consequence of our striving to follow Christ in the world.
The quickest way to escape from our sufferings is to want them to endure as long as God pleases.
Suffering persecution and affliction in a righteous manner on a single occasion does more to conform us to the image of Christ than we could have done by merely imitating his mercy in many good works.
One of the greatest evidences of God's love for those that love God is to send them afflictions along with grace to bear them. Even in the greatest afflictions, we need to testify to God that in receiving them from God's hand, we feel pleasure in the midst of the pain from being afflicted by God, who loves us and whom we love.
The most direct way God uses to draw us to God is to afflict us in the thing we love most, and with good reason. God will cause this affliction to arise from some good action done on behalf of the object of our love. The effect is to reveal to us the true emptiness of what the world regards as lovely and desirable.
(2) True surrender is a complete conformity to the whole will of God, who wills and does all (except sin) that comes to pass in the world. In order to do this, we have only to embrace all events, good and bad, as God's will.
In the greatest misfortunes that may happen to the righteous, either from heaven or earth, they remain steadfast in peace and perfectly submissive to God. They are able to do this by an inward, loving regard for God, uniting in one all the powers of their souls.
We ought to quietly suffer whatever befalls us, to bear the faults of others and our own, to confess them to God in secret prayer or with groans that are too deep to be spoken in words.' But we must never speak a sharp or disagreeable word, nor murmur or sigh. Be thoroughly willing that God should treat you in the manner that is pleasing to God. After all, we are God's lambs and, therefore, ought to be ready to suffer, even to the death, without complaining.
We are to bear with those we cannot change and be content with offering them to God. This is true surrender.
Because Christ has borne our infirmities,? we may well bear those of one another for Christ's sake.
To abandon everything, to strip one's self bare in order to seek and to follow Jesus Christ naked to Bethlehem where he was born, naked to the hall where he was scourged, and naked to Calvary where he died on the cross is so great a mercy that both the will to do it and the knowledge of it is given to anyone only through faith in the Son of God.
(3) There is no love of God without patience, and no patience without humility and sweetness of spirit.
Humility and patience are the surest proofs of the increase of love.
Humility alone unites patience with love, without which it is impossible to draw any benefit from suffering, or indeed, to avoid complaint. This is especially true when we think we have given no cause for suffering we endure at the hands of others.
True humility is a kind of denial of self.' This is the center of all virtues.
A soul returned to God ought to pay close attention to everything that is said to him or her about salvation, with a desire to grow in holiness of heart and life.
Of the sins God has forgiven, let nothing remain but a deeper humility in the heart and a more disciplined ordering of our words, our actions, and our sufferings.
(4) Tolerating others and suffering evils in meekness and silence is the sum of a Christian life.
God is the first object of our love. Love's next responsibility is to bear the failings of others. And we should begin the practice of this amidst our own household.
We should especially practice our love toward those who most shock either our way of thinking, our temperament, our knowledge, or the desire we have that others should be as virtuous as we wish to be ourselves.
(S) God rarely gives his Spirit, even to those who have been established in grace, if they do not pray for it on all occasions, not only once but many times.
God does nothing but in answer to prayer. Even the people who have been converted to God without praying for it themselves (which is extremely rare) were prayed for by others. Every new victory that a soul gains is the effect of a new prayer.
Whenever we experience anxiety, we should steep ourselves in prayer. In those times, we need to open our hearts and minds to the grace and light of God. Only then will we be prepared to make decisions in accord with God's will, without concern for any success or failure they may bring.
In the greatest temptations a single look to Christ and simply speaking his name is enough to overcome the wicked one. Let it be done with confidence and calmness of spirit.
God's command to "pray without ceasing"* is founded on the need we have of grace to sustain the life of God in the soul. This life God gives can no more survive one moment without God's grace than the body can without air.
When we think of or speak to God, whether we act or suffer for God, all is prayer when we have no other goal than God's love and the desire to please God.
All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer when it is done in simplicity, according to the command of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by personal choice.
Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding is worked out in outward actions.
In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a ceaseless prayer.
We call the furious hate that the devil bears us "the roaring of a lion"; we may likewise call our vehement love "crying after God."
All God requires of God's adult children is that their hearts be truly purified, and that they continually offer to God the desires and promises that naturally flow from perfect love. These desires, being the genuine fruits of love,' are the most perfect prayers that can flow from such love.
(6) It is difficult to comprehend how narrow the way of life is into which God leads those who would follow.' It is equally difficult to understand how dependent upon God we must be; that is, unless we are lacking in faithfulness to God.
It is difficult for many to believe the great significance God places upon the smallest of things. It is also hard for many to grasp the many troubles that sometimes flow from those faults that appear to be minor failings.
A small speck of dust will cause a clock to malfunction, and a single grain of sand will obscure our sight.
Likewise, a single grain of sin in the heart will hinder its right motion toward God.
We ought to be in the church as the saints are in church, house: This section, heaven, and in the house as the holiest people are in the beginning on page 81 with "(1) The church, doing our work in the house as we pray in the sea is an excellent image... ," is an church, worshiping God from the depths of the heart. extended quotation from InstrucWe should be continually working to cut off all the tions chrestiennes, by Jean useless things that surround us. God usually decreases the Duvergier de Hauranne (1581excesses of our souls in the same proportion as we do
1643), also known as Saint-Cyran. those of our bodies.
Hauranne is saying that we The best means of resisting the devil is to destroy whatshould take our piety home ever of the world remains in us in order to raise for God,
Beith us from church. upon its ruins, a building all of love. Then we shall begin, in this short life, to love God now as we will love in eternity.
We rarely realize how easy it is to rob God of his due in our friendship with the most virtuous people, until they are torn from us by death. But if this loss produces lasting sorrow, that is a clear proof that we had two treasures between which we divided our heart.
(7) After we have renounced all sin, we must be constantly on guard against temptation if we are to remain free. We need to pray for God's vigilance to supplement ours. Failing to watch and pray will lead us to once again be captured and overcome.
Just as dangerous winds may enter a house through tiny openings, the devil never enters more dangerously than by small, unnoticed events that seem to be insignificant. Yet they gradually open the heart to great temptations.
It is good to renew ourselves from time to time by thorough self-examination of the state of our soul as if we have never examined it before. Nothing contributes more to the full assurance of faith than keeping ourselves in humility and the exercise of all good works.
Add to constant watchfulness and prayer steady employment. For grace fills a vacuum as well as nature, and the devil fills whatever God does not fill.
There is no faithfulness like that which should exist between a guide of souls and the person directed by him or her. The guide and the one guided must regularly honor each other in God and closely examine themselves to assure that all their thoughts are pure and all their words directed with Christian judgment. Other affairs are only the things of humans, but these are singularly the things of God.
(8) The words of Saint Paul, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit,"' show us the necessity of looking to God in our good works and even in our smallest thoughts. We know that only those that God forms in