The Gifts of God

THE GIFTS OF GOD

To understand what the spirit of faith is, we must know that when a soul has given itself entirely to God, God first of all inspires that soul with the greatest confidence in him, the greatest faith in his words and promises, and the most utter resignation to his guidance; but afterwards God may please to try this confidence in every sort of way, by acting in a manner apparently contrary to all he has said and promised, and by seeming to forsake those who have forsaken all for his sake; by throwing them into a state of such obscurity, of such desolation, of such a strange upheaval of all things, that they no longer know how they stand, and are almost inclined to believe that God intends their ruin. In spite of all this, these souls persevere in the service of God: they relax nothing; they sacrifice one after the other their dearest interests; they hope against hope in the depths of their hearts, as Saint Paul says, that is to say, they hope against all natural reasons for hoping; and by acting in this manner, they glorify God exceedingly and amass an inestimable treasure of merit...

So it is in the law of grace with those souls whom God calls to a high state of perfection. He generally begins by unveiling his designs for them; he loads them at first with gifts and favours; and when they think that they are far advanced in his good graces, little by little he withdraws from them: he takes away his gifts; he casts them from one abyss into another; and when he has brought them to a state apparently of utter loss, to an absolute sacrifice of themselves, he raises them up again, and, with the new life which he communicates to them, he gives them an assurance and a foretaste of eternal beatitude.

Father Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J.

Father Grou (d. 1803) was a French Jesuit priest and a beloved spiritual master.