“Christian perfection is not so severe, tiresome, and constraining as we think. It asks us to be God’s from the bottom of our hearts. And since we thus are God’s, everything that we do for Him is easy. Those who are God’s are always glad, when they are not divided, because they only want what God wants and want to do for Him all that He wishes. They divest themselves of everything, and in this divesting find a hundredfold return.

Peace of conscience, liberty of heart, the sweetness of abandoning ourselves in the hands of God, the joy of always seeing the light grow in our hearts, finally, freedom from the fears and insatiable desires of the times, multiply a hundredfold the happiness which the true children of God possess in the midst of their crosses, if they are faithful.

They sacrifice themselves, but to what they love most. They suffer, but they want to suffer, and they prefer the suffering to every false joy. Their bodies endure sharp pain, their imagination is troubled, their spirit droops in weakness and exhaustion, but their will is firm and quiet in their deepest and more intimate self.

What God asks of us is a will which is no longer divided between Him and any creature. It is a will pliant in His hands which neither seeks nor rejects anything, which wants without reserve whatever He wants, and which never wants under any pretext anything which He does not want. When we are in this disposition, all is well, and the most idle amusements turn to good works.

Happy are they who give themselves to God!…The true Christian, whatever the misfortunes which Providence heaps upon him, wants whatever comes and does not wish for anything which he or she does not have. The more one loves God, the more one is content. The highest perfection, instead of overloading us, makes our yoke lighter.”

{An excerpt from Devotional Classics – Francois Fenelon on “A Will No Longer Divided”}

Comments