It is certain, from Scripture, that the Spirit of God dwells within us, that He acts there, that He prays there unceasingly, that He groans there, that He desires there, that He asks there for what we ourselves do not know how to ask, that He urges us, animates us, speaks to us in silence, suggests all truth to us, and unites us so closely to Himself that we are no longer anything but one spirit with God.
This is what faith teaches us. This is what the Doctors most removed from the interior life cannot help but acknowledge. However, despite these principles, they always tend to assume in practice that the external law, or at most a certain light of doctrine and reasoning enlightens us within ourselves, and that afterwards, it is our reason which acts upon this instruction.
We do not rely enough on the interior Teacher, who is the Holy Spirit, and who does everything in us. He is the soul of our soul: we cannot form a single thought or desire apart from Him. Alas! What then is our blindness? We act as if we were alone in this interior sanctuary: and yet, on the contrary, God is there more intimately than we are ourselves.
You may perhaps ask me: Are we then inspired? Yes, without a doubt, but not like the Prophets and the Apostles. Without the actual inspiration of the Spirit of grace, we can neither do, nor will, nor believe any good. We are therefore always inspired; but we constantly stifle this inspiration.
God never ceases to speak; but the noise of creatures without, and of our passions within, deafens us and prevents us from hearing Him. All creatures must be silenced; one must silence oneself, to listen, in this profound silence of the entire soul, to that ineffable voice of the Bridegroom. One must lend an ear; for it is a gentle and delicate voice which is heard only by those who no longer hear all else.
Oh, how rare it is that the soul is silent enough to let God speak! The slightest murmur of our vain desires, or of a self-love attentive to itself, confounds all the words of the Spirit of God. One hears well that He speaks and that He asks for something: but one does not do what He says; and often one is quite glad not to discern it.
The slightest reservation, the slightest turning back upon oneself, the slightest fear of hearing too clearly that God asks for more than one is willing to give, troubles this interior word. Should we then be astonished if so many people, even pious ones, but still full of distractions, vain desires, false wisdom, and confidence in their own virtues, cannot hear it, and regard this interior word as a chimera of fanatics?
Alas! What do they mean with their disdainful reasonings? What use would the external word of Pastors, and even of Scripture, be if there were not an interior word of the Holy Spirit Himself, which gives the other all its efficacy? The external word, even of the Gospel, without this living and fruitful interior word, would be but an empty sound.
It is the letter alone which kills, and the spirit alone which can give us life. O Word, O eternal and all-powerful Word of the Father, it is You who speak in the depths of souls. That word, which came from the mouth of the Savior during the days of His mortal life, had such power and produced so many fruits on earth only because it was animated by that word of life, which is the Word Himself.
Hence Saint Peter says:
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
It is therefore not only the external law of the Gospel, which God shows us interiorly by the light of reason and faith; it is His Spirit who speaks, who touches us, who operates in us, and who animates us; so that it is this Spirit who does in us all the good that we do, just as it is our soul which animates our body and governs its movements.
It is therefore true that we are unceasingly inspired, and that we live the life of grace only insofar as we have this interior inspiration. But, my God, few Christians feel it; for there are very few who do not annihilate it by their voluntary dissipation or by their resistance. This inspiration should not persuade us that we are like the Prophets.
The inspiration of the Prophets was full of certainty for the things which God revealed to them or commanded them to do: it was an extraordinary movement, either to reveal future things, or to perform miracles, or to act with all divine authority. Here, on the contrary, the inspiration is without light, without certainty; it is limited to insinuating in us obedience, patience, gentleness, humility, and all the other virtues necessary for every Christian.
It is not a divine movement to prophesy, to change the laws of nature, and to command men on God's behalf: it is a simple invitation in the depths of the soul to obey, to let ourselves be destroyed and annihilated according to the designs of God's love. This inspiration, taken thus within its limits and in its simplicity, therefore contains only the common doctrine of the whole Church; it has in itself, if the imagination of men adds nothing to it, no snare of presumption or illusion: on the contrary, it holds us in the hand of God, under the guidance of the Church, giving all to grace without wounding our freedom, and leaving nothing either to pride or to imagination.
These principles being established, we must recognize that God speaks unceasingly in us. He speaks in impenitent sinners; but these sinners, deafened by the noise of the world and their passions, cannot hear Him; His word is a fable to them. He speaks in sinners who are converting; these feel the remorse of their conscience and these remorseful pangs are the voice of God reproaching their vices to them interiorly.
When these sinners are deeply touched, they have no difficulty understanding this secret voice, for it is this which pierces them so vividly. It is in them that sharp sword of which Saint Paul speaks; it goes even to the division of the soul from itself. God makes Himself felt, tasted, followed: one hears that gentle voice which carries to the very depths of the heart a tender reproach, and the heart is torn by it.
This is true and pure contrition. God speaks in enlightened, learned persons, whose life, externally regular in all things, appears adorned with many virtues: But often these persons, full of themselves and their own lights, listen too much to themselves to listen to God. Everything is turned into reasoning: one makes for oneself principles of natural wisdom, and methods of prudence, out of all that would come to us infinitely better through the channel of simplicity and docility to the Spirit of God.
These persons appear good, sometimes more than others: they even are so up to a certain point; but it is a mixed goodness. One possesses oneself, one always wants to possess oneself according to the measure of one's reason: one wants always to be in the hands of one's own counsel, one is strong and great in one's own eyes.
O my God, I give You thanks with Jesus Christ for hiding Your ineffable secrets from these great and wise ones, while You take pleasure in revealing them to weak and little souls! It is only with children that You familiarize Yourself without reserve. You treat the others in their own fashion. They want knowledge, lofty virtues; You give them brilliant lights, and You make of them a kind of hero.
But that is not the best portion. There is something more hidden for Your dearest children. Those rest, with John, upon Your breast. As for these great ones, who always fear to bend and to make themselves small, You leave them in their greatness, You treat them according to their gravity.
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They will never have Your caresses and Your familiarities; one must be a child and play upon Your knees to deserve them. I have often observed that an ignorant and coarse sinner, who begins to be vividly touched by the love of God in his conversion, is more disposed to hear this interior language of the Spirit of grace, than certain enlightened and learned persons.
God, who seeks only to communicate Himself, knows not, so to speak, where to set foot in these souls full of themselves and too nourished by their own wisdom and virtues, but His familiar conversation, as Scripture says, is with the simple.
Source: Spiritual Works of the late Mgr François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon – 1752