On Simplicity

It is more easy to feel what simplicity is than to define it. To understand what it is, let us contemplate it first as it is in God; afterwards we will consider it as it is displayed in an interior soul; and we shall come to the conclusion that in God, as in His favoured creature, simplicity is the source, the principle, and the crown of all perfection.

God is infinitely perfect, with every kind of perfection, because He is a Being infinitely simple. He is eternal, because His existence, having neither beginning, nor end, nor succession of time, is simple and indivisible in its duration. There is in God neither past nor future, but an unchanging present.

We cannot say of God, as we can of a creature, He was, He will be; but we must always say, He is; and in this He is is comprehended in an ineffable manner all time, either real or imaginary, without having, however, with time, any common measure.

God is immense, because His existence is infinitely simple as to His omnipresence. He is everywhere, and yet He is not bounded or contained anywhere. No other body, and no other spirit can be nowhere, because every body is necessarily bounded by the space it occupies, and every created spirit only exists and acts where God wishes it to exist and act.

The science of God is infinite, because it is simple; there is in Him no reasoning, or multiplicity of ideas, as there is in created intelligences. He has only one single idea, which embraces the perfect knowledge of all things in itself. It is the same with all the Divine perfections: simplicity is the character of them, and they are infinite just because they are simple.

His exterior actions are varied, and can be infinitely so; the operations of His grace, of His justice, and of His mercy are varied, in like manner, if we consider them in creatures, who are the end of them. But when we consider these actions and operations in God Himself, they are nothing else but His one, continued, and infinitely simple action an action which, in its Divine simplicity, extends to everything in the physical and moral order.

The end which God proposes to Himself in all He does, in all He commands or forbids or permits, is infinitely simple, and has only one sole object in view, which is His own glory. It is to His glory that everything that happens in this world must necessarily tend, as well as the happiness of the good in another life and the misery of the wicked. Thus, under whatever aspect we contemplate God, He is simple, and His simplicity is the root of His infinity. Our intelligence, when it is enlightened by the Divine light, can understand a little of this great and sublime truth; it can contemplate it, but it can never fathom the depth of it, or perfectly comprehend it. God alone can comprehend His own infinite simplicity. The little I have just said is enough to give us a just idea of it, although a very imperfect one.

It is evident that simplicity can never be the same in a mere creature as it is in God; but it is none the less evident that the perfection of the creature consists in his resemblance to God, and that the more simple he becomes, after the manner of God, the more perfect he is. Everything therefore that God does to a soul to make it holy, has for its first object to make it simple; and all the co-operation He requires from that soul is that it should allow itself to be torn from every kind of multiplicity, to pass on to a state of simplicity which shall be a participation in the simplicity of God.

When, therefore, a soul has given herself entirely to God, that He may do as He pleases with her in time and in eternity, He simplifies her first of all in the very depths of her nature by placing there a principle of infused and supernatural love which becomes the simple and only motive of her whole conduct. She begins to love God without any other motive than because He is God; she loves Him for Himself, and not for her own sake; she refers everything to this love, without even thinking expressly about it or paying attention to it: love is the simple and sole object of this soul; she is always out of herself, as it were always tending to despoil herself of self and to be transformed into the beloved object. God makes her simple in her understanding. The multitude of thoughts which formerly embarrassed her ceases; during this time she can no longer meditate, or reason, or speak. A light that is simple, though indistinct, enlightens her; she walks by the guidance of this dim light, without perceiving anything very clearly. Her prayer, which before was full of consideration, affections, and good resolutions, becomes quite simple; she is occupied, and nevertheless she does not feel that she is occupied with anything; she feels and enjoys without being able to say what she enjoys. It is no longer a particular feeling; it is a confused and general feeling which she cannot explain. Do not ask of her upon what subject she is making her prayer; she cannot tell you, she does not know; no ideas present themselves to her mind, and she cannot seize any of those that are offered to her. All that she knows is that she is in prayer, and that she is there as it pleases God, sometimes dry, sometimes in consolation, sometimes sensibly recollected, sometimes involuntarily distracted, but always in peace, and united to God in the depths of her being. She passes whole hours in this state without fatigue or disgust, empty apparently of thoughts or affections: it is because her thoughts and affections have become quite simple, and have for their only end God, the Being Who is infinitely simple. This soul is almost always the same, even when she is not actually in prayer; if she is reading, or speaking, or occupied with work and domestic cares, she feels that she is less taken up with what she is doing than with God, for Whom she is doing everything, and that He is really the secret occupation of her spirit, in such a manner that in this respect her prayer and her attention to God are continual, and are not distracted by any exterior object whatever. This simplicity of spirit is perfected from day to day, and the great care of the soul is to drive away everything which could bring her back to multiplicity.

God makes her will simple by reducing it to one sole aim, one sole object, one sole desire, which is the accomplishment of His Divine will. The soul is no longer wearied, as formerly, by a thousand desires, a thousand cares, a thousand anxieties. Her affections are all concentrated on One alone. She loves all she ought to love parents, relations, husband, children, and friends but she loves them only in God, and because of the love she has for God. She knows no longer whether she wishes for anything, because her will is lost in the will of God, and He wills for her from one moment to another whatever is most suitable for her. It is thus that her simplified will finds its rest and its centre in the will of God.

God makes her simple by detaching her little by little from herself, and from all regard for her own interests, even from all care about her actual situation. All the things she liked formerly play, or conversation, or reading, or sight-seeing all these become insipid to her; the society of creatures is only annoying to her; she only associates with them as a matter of duty, and from courtesy and kindness; God draws her incessantly within herself, and separates her from all exterior things. He takes away from her by degrees all considerations about herself, or about what is going on within her, because if her thoughts were thus divided, and fixed sometimes upon God, and sometimes upon herself, she would never become perfectly simple, until at last she comes to know no longer how she is never to think of herself at all, never to be troubled about herself, and carefully to suppress every thought as far as is lawful of which she herself is the object, that God alone may occupy her entirely. He takes away from her, for the same reason, all care for her own interest, because her intention would not be perfectly simple and pure if she united a seeking for her own interest to her care for the interests of God. Therefore she never looks at her actions, or her good works, or her progress in perfection, as if they had anything to do with her, or as if they were things that interested her personally, but she looks at everything with regard to God alone, as things which come from Him, which belong to Him, and of which He can dispose as He pleases.

God makes her simple in all her exterior conduct. There is in her no evasion, no pretence, no dissimulation, no intrigue, no self-seeking, no affectation, no human respect. She goes simply as God leads her; she says and does what .she thinks to be her duty, without troubling herself about what any one will say or think of her. Her conversation is simple, true, and natural; she prepares nothing beforehand; she says what the Spirit of God suggests to her without fear of the consequences. Even if it were in a matter concerning her honour, or her possessions, or her life, she would never say a word or take a step of herself, but she would leave to God the arrangement of all things, and she would never see anything but His hand in whatever might happen to her from creatures.

This is a brief picture of true Christian simplicity, as it is found in a soul which suffers herself to be led entirely by God. And it is easy to see that this virtue embraces the whole perfection of the interior life that it is the beginning, the middle, and the end of it and that the soul has attained the highest degree of sanctity when, becoming perfectly simple, she only sees God in all things, she only loves God in all things, and when she has no other interests but the interests of God that is to say, His glory and the accomplishment of His will.

We can understand now why interior souls are so despised by the world, which is, as Saint John says, given up to wickedness and to the multiplicity of created things, whilst interior souls, on their side, are all innocence, candour, and simplicity. These are two most opposite spirits, each of which condemns and reproves the other. The world is nothing but pretence, dissimulation, deceit, and self-love; it refers everything to itself and to its temporal interests. Interior souls are just the contrary; and for this reason they pass in the eyes of the world as fools and madmen.

We can understand also why these interior souls are hated and detested by mercenary and self-interested souls, although they may be otherwise virtuous and devout: it is because they are both travelling on such very different roads; it is that the one kind are serving God for His own sake, without any thought of their own interest, which is the necessary fruit of their simplicity; while the other kind are seeking themselves in the service of God, appropriating all to themselves, greedy for sensible fervour and consolation, wishing always to be certain about their state, and never consenting to lose sight of themselves for a moment. It is impossible that these two kinds of devotion can ever be sympathetic, and the simple souls, who have abandoned themselves entirely to God, must always have a great deal to suffer from the others, who see in them a silent condemnation of their principles and their conduct.

Finally, we can understand now why the sanctity of simple and interior souls is unknown on earth, unless God manifests it Himself. It is because their very simplicity makes them walk in a way that is quite common and ordinary as to the exterior; because they affect no singularity; because they have few exterior practices of devotion; because everything passes within them secretly, and is only seen by the eye of God, and because they hide themselves not only from others, but also from themselves. God wishes them to belong to Him only; He hides them in the secret of His Presence; and to make the singular graces He gives them more safe and sure, He almost always allows them to be humbled, calumniated, and persecuted. In like manner Jesus Christ was misunderstood, despised, and rejected by the Jews, and was only glorified after His death on the cross.

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