"Ut jumentum factus sum apud te: et ego semper tecum." (I am as a beast before Thee: nevertheless I am always with Thee.)"Ut jumentum factus sum apud te: et ego semper tecum." (I am as a beast before Thee: nevertheless I am always with Thee.)
Remark the connection between these two things: "To be as a beast before God," and yet "to be always with God." This is scarcely in conformity with the ideas which we form to ourselves of the infinite sanctity of God, and of what is necessary for our union with Him. What! to attain to this familiarity, this close union with God, I must be before him as a beast? Yes, it is so, and it is the Spirit of God Who has revealed it to us.
But what does it mean to be a beast, and a beast of burden, before God? The beast of burden that is intended for the use of man employs in the service of man all its strength, not according to its own judgment and will, but according to the judgment and the will of man. It is loaded with whatever man wishes, as he wishes, and when he wishes. It goes by the road man chooses, and at the pace he pleases; it only stops to take food and rest when and how he pleases. In short, the beast of burden is quite at the disposal of its master, and can resist him in nothing.
So should our soul be with regard to God. If our soul desires to be always with Him, she must always depend upon Him in everything and for everything. She must of herself have neither action, nor judgment, nor choice, but in all things she must judge and choose and act only under the guidance of God. She must be content to be moved as God pleases to move her in all things, but especially in spiritual things.
What must we then do to attain to this total dependence upon God? We must annihilate ourselves and suffer Him to annihilate us continually.
We must annihilate ourselves as to what regards our mind and intellect, not allowing it to be attracted by any object for its own sake, not allowing it to be exclusively occupied with anything, or to judge of anything by its own light, but rather leaving it as far as lies in our own power perfectly void and empty, that God may fill this void with the thoughts that please Him. When we are in prayer, when we assist at Holy Mass, when we communicate, we must keep ourselves in the simple disposition to receive from God just what He pleases to give us, without being very much distressed if He gives us nothing, if we are dry and distracted, or even a prey to many temptations. When we are reading a pious book, we must simply give ourselves up to the impressions which God sends us, waiting to receive from Him the light to understand and the feeling to enjoy what we read.
In our conversations with our neighbour we must not prepare anything beforehand, we must not reflect upon things, we must not notice the faults of the persons with whom we speak, or at all events we must try not to dwell upon them; we must say honestly and kindly what we think, without troubling ourselves whether we are pleasing people or being approved of by them; and when once the conversation is over we must think no more about it after the persons are gone away.
When we are alone we must try always to keep our mind free, without allowing it to dwell either on the past or the future, or on the affairs of others, occupying ourselves only with the present moment. We must carefully repress all curiosity of whatever kind, or upon whatever subject; we must only be mixed up with our own affairs, or with those of our neighbour, when charity requires it; and for all the rest, we must try to be in the world as if we were not there, and see what is passing without fixing our attention upon it.
We must annihilate ourselves in all that regards our heart, attaching ourselves to nothing except according to the will of God, appropriating nothing to ourselves, desiring nothing, and fearing nothing. It is comparatively easy to detach ourselves from temporal goods, from human sympathies and natural affections; this does not cost us much when we have once given ourselves to God, and when once we have tasted the sweetness of living only for Him. But it is not so easy, it costs us a great deal, to be really detached from spiritual goods, to be indifferent about Divine consolations, to receive them with simplicity, to lose them without regret, and not to desire their return.
We do not consent willingly and easily to lose our sensible peace, our conscious recollection, our enjoyment of the presence of God. And yet we must prepare ourselves for this loss, so that we may never be astonished and disconcerted when it happens to us.
Neither do we ever willingly consent to be the object of ridicule and contempt, of calumnies, of the false judgments of men, and never to say a word or to make a step to justify ourselves; but to suffer in silence and in peace, waiting till it pleases God to declare Himself on our side, and making to Him, if He requires it, the sacrifice of our reputation.
It is still harder to see ourselves forsaken by God, to receive no longer any drops of celestial dew, but to find ourselves dry and insensible, without enlightenment or fervour; to experience every kind of conflict and agitation and interior desolation; not to know whether we love God or whether God loves us; and so on and so on through all those depths of spiritual trials which God does not spare to those who love Him most. Nevertheless we must expect all this, if we wish to be closely and intimately united to God, and if we wish to be purified from all love of ourselves, even where it seems most justifiable and most spiritual. Many souls run extreme danger of stopping on the way; they draw back from God, as Jesus Christ says, when the time of trial comes: they are those houses without foundation of which the Gospel speaks, which cannot stand against winds and storms and inundations. But generous souls, who are prepared for everything, who do not rely upon themselves but upon God, who love Him for Himself alone, and who prefer His glory and His good pleasure to their own interests, such souls are purified in these trials as gold is purified in the crucible: they resist, as gold resists, the full activity of the fire; the fire only burns away from them the rust and dross of self-love with which sin has infected them, and restores them to their original purity.
If we will suffer ourselves thus to be annihilated by degrees, if we will look upon ourselves as consecrated and devoted to God, that He may do as He pleases with us, then we shall be always with Him; we shall be united to Him all the more closely when we think He is farthest from us.
When our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, dying on the cross in every imaginable torment, exterior and interior, a victim to the passions of men and the justice of God when He cried out to His Father, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" had His Father really forsaken Him? No, indeed: on the contrary, His Father had never loved Him so much as at that moment, when Jesus Christ was giving Him the greatest proof of love. But God made our Lord Jesus Christ experience the most terrible effects of the Divine dereliction, to complete the most perfect Sacrifice that ever was consummated. And it is the same, only not in the same degree, with those generous and loving souls whom God wishes to try. The more He seems to forsake them, the nearer He is to them in reality, the more He supports them, the more He loves them. But He waits for eternity to give them the full proofs of His love for them, after they shall have given Him in this life the proofs of their love for Him which He has a right to expect from them.
- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou