God’s will, not the Evil one’s
Likewise, souls who can recognize God in the most trivial, the most grievous and the most mortifying things that happen to them in their lives, honor everything equally with delight and rejoicing, and welcome with open arms what others dread and avoid. ~Jean-Pierre de Caussade
For a while now, my theology has been that when spit happens to other people, we should fight like hell for their sakes, whereas when spit happens to us (as Christians), we should submit and trust God.
Re-reading Caussade, I’m getting a deeper picture, based on the scriptural promise that the Evil one cannot touch Christians (1 John 5.18). From this basis, it seems that we should be vigilant against the powers of evil that threaten our neighbors, and that our task as salt of the earth is to protect our communities.
But in our own lives, we must trust that all that happens to us is the will of God (since the Evil one cannot touch us), and that all the difficulties and disappointments we face are the will of God in disguise, God’s love for us poured out in shapes that confuse our senses in order that faith may truly live.
A living faith is nothing else than a steadfast pursuit of God through all that disguises, disfigures, demolishes and seeks, so to speak, to abolish him.
Abandonment to Divine Providence
I’ve been slowly re-reading de Caussade’s book — this time using Kitty Muggeridge’s translation, under the title The Sacrament of the Present Moment. Not a complicated book, but much denser than first appears. Caussade’s main idea is simple: abandon yourself to God’s will as revealed in the duties of each moment. But surrounding this idea are a large number of nuanced reflections on the ways God operates.
This time through, I’m noticing his sub-theme of God hiding himself from us, especially during times of suffering: (more…)
