"God alone" is a great word in the interior life. The first step we make in the way of perfection is to devote ourselves to God alone. And in proportion as we advance in it, we detach ourselves more and more from everything that is not God, and from ourselves above all. We reach the summit of perfection when we find ourselves united to God alone, in a most close union, and with nothing to come between us.
It is impossible to conceive what this possession of God alone really is, when He is united in Himself, by His very substance, with the centre of the soul; we must experience it to be able to know what it is, and even then we shall find the greatest difficulty in making others understand what we experience. But the purity of soul which is necessary to merit this blessed possession, the trials through which she must pass beforehand, are no less incomprehensible; and whatever we may read about it in spiritual books, or in the lives of the saints, we can never really form any idea of it until we have ourselves experienced it.
It is not ourselves, it is not our director, however spiritual and enlightened he may be, it is God alone Who can give us this blessed possession of Himself. This work is His own work above all others; and it is a work incomparably greater than the creation and government of the universe. The only thing the soul can do, to co-operate with this work, is to suffer God to do as He pleases without examining what He is doing, to keep herself faithfully and peacefully in the state in which God places her, to oppose no voluntary resistance to His operation, and to allow herself to be despoiled by degrees of all that is not God alone and His good pleasure. As long as she can act at all of herself the soul must correspond with Divine grace with the greatest exactitude; she must forbid herself a look or a word, a taste or a fancy, or even the most innocent and permitted thing; as soon as God calls her she must rise above every human consideration, without troubling herself in any way as to what is said about her or thought about her, or anything vexatious and painful that may happen to her; she must stand firm against her natural inclinations, her natural aversions, every rebellion of nature, every suggestion of the evil spirit.
When God takes entire possession of her, so that she is no longer mistress of herself nor of the powers of her soul, neither of her memory to recollect anything, nor of her understanding to make reflections, nor of her will to produce affections, then her duty is to allow herself to be ruled and governed absolutely by God, to suffer all the trials He chooses to send her without thinking either of what use they can be or what will be the end of them, without desiring to be delivered from them, and at the same time never to relax any of her exercises or practices. God may seem to withdraw from her; the heaven may be like brass and iron to her; she may no longer receive one single drop of dew or of consolation; she may have no more assurance either from God or man; everything may appear to declare it- self against her; she may think herself hopelessly lost; and yet she will persevere always in devoting herself, in sacrificing herself to the good pleasure of God, never thinking about herself, never being anxious as to what will become of her, and being confident that, provided she remains inviolably united to God, she can only lose herself in Him to find herself in Him again and for ever.
This is what the soul has to do with regard to God.
As to what regards him whom God has given to her for a guide, she ought to see God only in him, and to open herself to him as she would do to God Himself; never to hide anything from him, or deceive him in anything, place an entire faith in all he says, obey him as she would obey God Himself; but at the same time she must only attach herself to him as a means which God will make use of as long as He pleases, and which He will take away from her when He thinks proper. Thus, she ought to keep to him as long as God leaves him to her, and never give him up of her own accord; but when God takes him away from her, however much this loss may cost her, she must acquiesce in it, and believe firmly that God has no need of any one particular man to guide her, but that He will either send her another guide or supply the place Himself, and be Himself her Guide, instead of using any human means. It happens sometimes that God leaves a soul without any direction: the trial is terrible, but if the soul is generous and faithful, she will lose nothing by this, and will only be all the better directed, being under the infallible direction of God Himself. A soul in this disposition, and that keeps in it by a faithful correspondence with Divine grace, will most certainly attain to the possession of God alone.
It is not, therefore, a question of intention, or project, or plan; no method, no book, no director, can lead us to God alone. I repeat it again: God alone can draw us and unite us to Himself. He alone knows what means are necessary; He knows how to take each individual soul, and by what way to lead it: we have nothing to do but to give ourselves up to Him, to allow Him to act in us, and to follow Him step by step.
If I am asked what it is necessary to renounce to attain to the possession of God alone, I reply in general terms that we must renounce without exception everything that is not God alone. And I add that God only can comprehend the extent of this renunciation; that man, with the ordinary light of grace, cannot form the slightest idea of it; that what he reads about it in spiritual books he may have a dim perception of, but cannot thoroughly understand; and that unless he has a particular inspiration he will never know what it is to give himself fully and entirely to God. It is then for God Himself to lead us by degrees to a perfect death to ourselves; it is for Him to inspire us one by one with the sacrifices He expects of us and to give us the courage to make them.
Let us not be frightened, and let us not presume on our own strength. If we listen to our imagination, it will throw us into discouragement, and will make us look upon this utter despoilment of ourselves as a phantom idea and a thing impossible to human nature; our mere reason even, if we consult it, will possibly tell us the same: but if we consult faith only, if we cast our eyes on the cross of Jesus Christ, if we meditate attentively on the great mystery of His passion, then we shall understand how far we ought to carry the renunciation of ourselves, that we may attain to a perfect union with God alone. Let us beg of our Divine Saviour to open our eyes, that we may understand those wonderful words of His: "All is consummated" and " Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit." Let us beg of Him to make us understand what He did when by a voluntary death He commended His soul into the hands of Divine justice to expiate our sins. And when we think of that great Sacrifice, imagination, reason and all created intelligence must keep silence, and we shall confess that there is no renunciation too great for a man to make with all his heart to merit the possession of God alone.
Let us not presume either upon our own strength, and let us not think ourselves capable of a generosity which is beyond a feeble creature. To cure ourselves of blind presumption, and to conceive as much as possible the extreme horror with which the perfect renunciation of self inspires human nature, let us consider our Lord and Saviour in the Garden of Olives; let us listen to what He said to His Father: "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me," this very cup which He had so ardently desired to drink. If God made Man was willing, for our instruction, to experience this extreme repugnance for the sacrifice which He had accepted from the first instant of His life, what a powerful grace is necessary for us, I do not say to make a sacrifice like His, but a sacrifice which may have some faint resemblance to His! Let us humble ourselves, let us be confounded, let us tremble at the sight of our own weakness and cowardice, but at the same time let us say: "God is all-powerful; provided only that I do not resist Him, He will do with me and by me whatever shall please Him: He will render me capable of the greatest efforts of generosity; He will detach me from myself, and will teach me to lose myself that I may live again in Him."
God alone! What a word! How great it is! how many things it expresses! No more of creatures, no more of one's self, no more of the gifts of God: a total void, an utter loss of all that is not God, God alone, God in Himself, God in closest union with His creature, a union that can never be broken!
- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou