On the Spirit of Faith

To understand what the spirit of faith really is, we, must know that when a soul has given itself entirely to God, God first of all inspires that soul with the greatest confidence in Him, the greatest faith in His words and promises, and the most utter resignation to His guidance; but afterwards God may please to try this confidence in every sort of way, by acting in a manner apparently contrary to all He has said and promised, and by seeming to forsake those who have forsaken all for His sake; by throwing them into a state of such obscurity, of such desolation, of such a strange upheaval of all things, that they no longer know how they stand, and are almost inclined to believe that God intends their ruin. In spite of all this, these souls persevere in the service of God: they relax nothing; they sacrifice one after the other their dearest interests; they hope against hope in the depths of their hearts, as Saint Paul says, that is to say, they hope against all natural reasons for hoping; and by acting in this manner they glorify God exceedingly and amass an inestimable treasure of merit.

All sacred history, of the Old as well as of the New Testament, is full of examples of this conduct of God; with this difference, that in the old law the object of the Divine promises was temporal and figurative, whereas in the new law the Divine promises have a spiritual object, and are all directed towards the salvation and perfection of souls. I will only quote one instance, and it shall be that of the patriarch Joseph. God showed him in a dream, when he was quite young, all his future greatness, and the homage which his father and brothers would render to him. But in what way did he attain to this greatness? In a way the very opposite apparently; in a way which seemed only designed to compass his ruin. His brothers, who were envious of him, made up their minds to kill him; they threw him into a dry cistern, intending to leave him there, to perish with hunger; then they took him out from there, and sold him to the Ishmaelites. Being sold as a slave in Egypt, he was first thought well of and trusted by his master; then calumniated by his wicked mistress and cast into prison. There he was forgotten and neglected by the man whose deliverance he had predicted. At last God sent to Pharaoh two dreams, of which Joseph gave the explanation, and all at once he was promoted to the first dignity in Egypt. His brothers trembled before him, and fell down before him without recognising him; he provided food for them and for his father; he became their saviour, and gave them protection and a home in Egypt. See by what a series of misfortunes Joseph attained the summit of honour: for long years he only escaped from one danger to fall into a still greater one; and when he believed himself to be hopelessly forgotten in the depths of a dungeon, God drew him from thence and raised him to a position of the highest dignity. What was it that supported Joseph during this chain of adversities? It was the spirit of faith: he never lost his confidence in God; he always believed that God would accomplish what He had promised.

So it is in the law of grace with those souls whom God calls to a high state of perfection. He generally begins by unveiling His designs for them; He loads them at first with gifts and favours; and when they think that they are far advanced in His good graces, little by little He withdraws from them: He takes away His gifts; He casts them from one abyss into another; and when He has brought them to a state apparently of utter loss, to an absolute sacrifice of themselves, He raises them up again, and, with the new life which He communicates to them, He gives them an assurance and a foretaste of eternal beatitude. This state of probation, which is a series of crosses, of bodily sufferings, of mental agonies, of desolations, humiliations, calumnies, and persecutions, lasts sometimes for fifteen or twenty years, sometimes longer, according to the designs of God, and the greater or less generosity and faithfulness of the soul.

Now what is it that supports these souls in a state so wearisome and so painful? It is the spirit of faith; it is their confidence in God: they have resigned themselves to Him; they will never take themselves away again; they will not withdraw from His guidance, whatever it may cost them. Even if they are to be lost, they will be lost rather than fail the least in the world in what they owe to God. They see nothing, they feel nothing, they take pleasure in nothing. If they pray, it seems to them that their prayers are rejected; if they communicate, they fancy they are committing a sacrilege; they no longer feel any confidence in their director; they think he is leading them astray; and notwithstanding all this, they continue to pray, to receive Holy Communion, and to obey. They have no comfort from within, no clear testimony of their conscience to reassure them; they fancy themselves covered with sins; it is as if the sword of Divine justice were suspended over their heads; and it seems to them as if every moment it must fall upon them, and precipitate them into hell. From without, they have no consolation, no support from any man; on the contrary, they are censured, they are condemned, they are loaded with calumnies and persecutions. And, in the midst of all this, strengthened by the spirit of faith, they remain firm and cannot be shaken; they live, but with a life the principle of which is unknown to them; they preserve an unchanging peace, but they are scarcely conscious of it, except sometimes for a short interval, and they do not reflect upon it, because God does not allow them to seek any consolation or pay any attention to what is passing within them. They live thus, suspended, as it were, between heaven and earth, having nothing upon earth which attracts them, and receiving no consolation from heaven. But, perfectly resigned to the good pleasure of God, they wait in peace until it is His will to decide on their fate.

What a miracle of faith, of confidence, and of resignation! It is unknown, except by you, O my God! For the soul in which this faith dwells, and which lives by this faith, knows nothing of it; and it is essential that she should be ignorant of it, otherwise her resignation would not be perfect. This is a state which, without doubt, gives more glory to God than any other; so that a soul of this kind glorifies Him infinitely more than all other souls who are holy with an ordinary holiness. Therefore, the devil, who is the great enemy of God's glory, has omitted nothing to cry down this state; he is its most fierce and terrible persecutor. He excites against it men who are either ignorant, or in bad faith, or of a proud spirit, and puffed up with their false knowledge: these men represent this state in the most frightful colours; they confound it with quietism, and they give it the odious names of hypocrisy, criminal indifference with regard to salvation, refined licentiousness, and so on; or they treat it as madness and the extravagance of a disordered brain. This is the way they describe it to good and pious souls, to draw them away from it, and to draw them away also from prayer, which is the gate of it; they try to inspire them with horror and aversion for persons who are in this state, for spiritual books which treat of it, and for directors who could guide them in it. God even permits sometimes that those who are in authority in His Church should be mistaken and misled in this matter, and that upon false reports, and without sufficient examination, they should condemn, unknowingly, the very holiest persons and the most marvellous works of God. God permits this, to put His favourites to the last trial of all, to confound the vain efforts of His enemies, and to draw from it His greater glory.

After what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ on the part of the high priests of the synagogue, there is nothing of this kind which ought to surprise us; and after what happened to the synagogue for having condemned Jesus Christ, there is nothing too terrible for those to expect who willfully condemn Him afresh in the person of His most faithful servants.

Therefore, in the midst of all the tempests which the devil may stir up against us, let us hold fast to the spirit of faith, and let us increase in it through the very means which are used to destroy it. He whom we serve is the All- Powerful, the Only True, the Ever-Faithful. Heaven and earth may pass away before He will suffer those to run any risk who have abandoned themselves to Him. He will try our love, for that is just: what is a love worth that has not been tried? And He will carry these trials to an extreme extent, because He is God, and there is no love too great for Him.

A thousand times happy is the soul whom God tries thus, and to whom He gives the opportunity of showing Him the greatest love which He can expect from a creature. Is it not just that there should be a kind of love for God which will go farther in suffering for Him even than the excesses of the most violent human passion? And the greatest favour He can grant to a soul here below is to inspire her with the efficacious desire of loving Him in this way. This love, stronger than death, more powerful than hell, is itself its own motive and its own recompense; it is fed with its own flame. God kindled it; God keeps it alive; God will crown it after the victim of it is consumed.

- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou