One must allow oneself, so to speak, to be carried along by the current of God's Providence, submit to events as they occur, and, interiorly, remain tranquil and without fear in the state where God places us, without desiring a change or an end to this state, however painful it may be to nature.
Saint Paul declared that all things work together for the good of those who love God. As this maxim is of continual use in the spiritual life, it is important to properly fix its meaning, explain its reasons, and examine its consequences.
First, the Apostle says *all things*; he excludes nothing. All events of providence, happy or unhappy; everything concerning health, possessions, reputation; all conditions of human life, all the various interior states through which one passes successively: privations, aridity, disgusts, weariness, temptations—all of this works to the advantage of those who love God: everything, I say again, even significant faults and sins.
One must be resolved never to offend God voluntarily; but if, unfortunately, one does offend Him, the offenses, even the crimes, can work to the advantage of those who love God. Witness David, witness Saint Peter, and many others, whose sins served to make them holier, that is, more humble, more grateful to God, more filled with love. All things work together for good. It is not a temporal good; the Gospel warns us of this sufficiently.
We are no longer under the dominion of the Law, which promised temporal advantages to its observers; but under that of Grace, which announces to those who wish to live according to piety only crosses and persecutions, and promises them only spiritual goods. This admits no difficulty; therefore, everything works for the *spiritual* good of those who love God.
But we must also understand this good, not according to our own judgment, which is faulty, but according to God's. If there is a matter on which we are prone to err, it is concerning everything related to our spiritual interests. We form very false ideas about them, and it often happens that we regard as harmful to our soul what is useful to it, or as advantageous what indeed harms it.
Our self-love creates strange illusions for us on this point. We must therefore believe, but by a view of faith, without stopping at our own judgment, that our true good is found in the events of providence and in the various interior states through which God makes us pass, even though we often understand nothing of these dispositions of God towards us and are ignorant of what they are meant to achieve.
But all these divine arrangements are a good only for those who *love God*, that is, whose will is united and submitted to God; who, in His service, consider above all things the interests of God, the glory of God, the accomplishment of His good pleasure; who are disposed to sacrifice everything to Him without exception, and are persuaded that there is nothing more advantageous for the creature than to lose oneself in God and for God, because it is the only way to find oneself in Him; for this is what I call loving God truly and with all one's heart.
And this is what Jesus Christ meant when He said: "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it for eternal life." Whoever loves God in this manner is assured, with an infallible assurance, that everything God wills or permits concerning him will work for his good, and even for his greatest good. He will not see it in the moment, because it is essential that he not see it, and the sacrifices he has to make could not take place if he saw it: but he will see it in due time; he will admire the infinite wisdom and goodness of God in the manner in which He conducts souls that are entirely His; and he will see with astonishment that what he believed would ruin him irreparably is what has secured his salvation.
It is not difficult to understand the foundation upon which Saint Paul's maxim rests. God alone has the true idea of holiness; He alone knows and has at His disposal the means that lead to it. He alone also knows the depths of our soul and our sentiments, our character, the obstacles within us to holiness; He alone knows by what secret springs He must move us, and how, without constraining our will in any way, He must lead it to the goal He proposes for our sanctification.
He knows what effect such an event, such a temptation, such a trial will produce on us; and on His part, everything is prepared for a successful outcome. God has loved us from all eternity; He loved us first, and there is nothing good in us, whether in the order of nature or of grace, that He has not given us. He loves us with an infinitely wise, infinitely enlightened love; He loves us, not in relation to the present life, which is but a passage, a trial, but in relation to the future life, which is our destination and our end.
If it is true, therefore, that everything that happens here below to the servants of God is regulated and arranged, by an infinite wisdom and love, for their eternal happiness, it can only be their fault if God's designs are not fulfilled; and if there is a single event that does not work for their spiritual advantage, the principle of their fault can only be a lack of love and trust, a defect in conformity to the will of God. For, as long as they love God with a real, effective, and practical love, it is impossible for anything in the world to retard their advancement, and indeed for everything not to cooperate and contribute to it.
The consequences of this maxim of the Apostle extend to everything and embrace every moment of life. The first is that, if one wishes to ensure one's salvation as much as it is possible to do, one must surrender, abandon oneself to God without reserve and forever; no longer dispose of oneself in anything, foresee nothing, arrange nothing, determine nothing except in dependence on the good pleasure of God; not take a step, a single movement to extricate oneself from the present situation where one is by God's order; not even desire to leave it: but allow oneself, so to speak, to be carried along by the current of Providence, submit to events as they occur, and, interiorly, remain tranquil and without fear in the state where God places us, without desiring a change or an end to this state, however painful it may be to nature.
The second consequence is that when we have contributed in no way to an external event or to our interior disposition, we must be assured that this event, this disposition is part of God's order for us, and consequently that it is perhaps what is most advantageous for us at the present moment.
Thus, we must be careful not to pass a contrary judgment upon it, nor to believe that it is a misfortune for us, that it harms our spiritual progress, that God is abandoning us and no longer takes care of us. We are prone to judge in this way when we no longer find taste in spiritual exercises; when we no longer feel that intimate peace we enjoyed before; when we find ourselves assailed by violent temptations; when God withdraws all external support from us, even to the point of taking away the one in whom we had placed our trust.
Then, one believes all is lost, because one sees oneself without support. One is mistaken. God never acts more effectively by Himself than when He removes external means, and His grace is never more real and stronger than when it is less felt. Our assurance, likewise, is never greater than when we believe we have lost all assurance. But the point is to know where to place this assurance: in God alone, in abandonment, in naked faith, in the suppression of all reflection, all reasoning, all regard for self, all consideration of one's own interests. It is then that, hoping against hope, one must say to oneself: Yes, I firmly believe that all this will work for my good, and that by abandoning myself entirely to God, I will not be confounded.
The third consequence is that, having once surrendered to God, one must expect all sacrifices, and above all the sacrifice of one's own insights. One must expect ways of God that will strangely exercise our reason and oblige us not to listen to it at all. One must expect everything that is most painful and mortifying, whether in the way of sufferings or humiliations, to interior and exterior upheavals that we do not foresee, that surpass all our conceptions, and of which neither books nor the experience of others can give us an idea.
One must expect, finally, that God will carry the iron and fire to the very depths of our heart, that He will tear out and burn self-love even at its root, and that He will leave nothing of ourselves subsisting in ourselves. This is frightening, no doubt, for nature; but the love of God, if it is as it ought to be, and if we leave it all power over us, disposes us to all these sacrifices and does not permit us to except any.
How would Saint Paul's maxim be true if, of all the things God can work in a soul, there were a single one that did not work for its spiritual and eternal advantage, and that for this reason, it believed itself authorized to refuse to God?
No, the Apostle said *all things*; and that great soul, who, following the example of Jesus Christ, wished to be anathema, a curse for the salvation of his Jewish brethren, was careful not to think that such a wish, so glorious to God, so conformed to the sentiments of Jesus Christ, should not work to his own advantage.
Also read: Should a Catholic Turn the Other Cheek in the Face of an Aggressor?
Whatever our immolation may be, it will never approach that of our divine Master; and if His, which was perfect, procured for His holy humanity a glory and a happiness above all that can be said or thought, we must believe with firm faith that our own immolation will procure for us a degree of that glory and happiness proportionate to the extent and generosity of our sacrifice.
Source: Manual for Interior Souls – Father Grou of the Society of Jesus – 1885