My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.
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Dear Soul,
As Jesus revealed to us while He prayed to his Father the night before He died and while He was in the company of his apostles, Jesus was not of this world, nor were his apostles, nor are we. Yet we are in the world, and having as it were one foot on Earth and the other in Heaven often causes us to feel off balance and we seek reassurance.
It is not so very healthy to become preoccupied with the progress of our soul or lack of it.
Yes we are to desire God with all our being and respond to God with all our faculties and energy to the point of loving our neighbor and even our enemies. However, we are not to fall into the temptation of wondering or trying to catch a glimpse into the souls of others or even our own.
We are the work of the Blessed Trinity and we are a work of love. It is enough for us to put all our trust in them and allow them to use all the events - even unpleasant - of our life and world around us for our good and benefit and that of others.
We are, as Jesus showed us, to accept to live fully and go through everything that is ours to live, do, and experience. We are to allow God to draw us away from our ordinary way of looking at life situations and understanding things and into a divine way of looking and understanding everything. Many spiritual writers have used different words to try to give expression to this.
"The Cloud of Unknowing" is a book written by an unknown author in the 15th century or so, at what is considered the beginning of the so called piety movement, during which time ordinary Christians began to have more personal experiences of the presence of God and to write about that experience, simple people who were not bishops, priests, religious, or extraordinary witnesses as in the early Church, but just ordinary people.
The Cloud's author writes about how, once we are more conscious of the presence of God and respond, the Blessed Trinity give us to see everything with the eyes of faith, but in a way that often outstrips the ability of our reason to keep up. It's a new kind of knowing, which is actually opposite to the normal way of knowing with our intellect, senses, and reason. It is a knowing that happens in what is for the reason darkness but for faith light. Most of the spiritual writers like John of the Cross spoke of this in similar terms.
Be careful dear Soul of thinking you are making great progress in God or judging whether or not other people are experiencing intimacy with God based on your own inner view or impressions of them. What is new to you may be very familiar to others, whether or not it is given to you to know anything about it or about them. It seems to please God that what goes on in the human soul be hidden from the eyes of others, and often even hidden from the soul itself.
For my part, I do not share with anyone what is going on between the Blessed Trinity and my soul. That is for Jesus' eyes alone. You may at times have been somehow motivated to have others change, or experience something that you are experiencing, or to manifest external signs that are in accord with your view of what it means to be in love with God or vitally connected to God, or whatever.
If you indeed have, then I am glad that you are feeling blessed by the love of the Blessed Trinity, and remember that the "Blessed Three in One" are looking after you as Jesus revealed in Himself as the Good Shepherd. He is doing the same with me and with all the other souls alive on the planet at this moment. So, take care to resist any urge to change others. In the course of our lives we all go through many things, and God alone knows how He intends to use all these experiences - especially the trials, temptations, failures, sins, illness, pain, and suffering to prepare us for eternal life.
The progress, regression, stumbling, hurting and healing, sin and repentance and forgiveness and conversion of each soul is in God's hands, and our part is to keep a reverent silence in the face of the mystery of each soul and its relationship hidden in God. Only at the end of time will what is now hidden be revealed.
Try to be content with the knowledge that you are indeed God's work of love, and allow yourself to be motivated only by gratitude to the Blessed Trinity, gratitude for everything at every moment of every day, and by eagerness to live in the desire and motivation to spend yourself with trust and generosity in one lifelong effort to respond to the Blessed Trinity and their love for you and for us all.
In the footsteps of Jesus, offer at every waking moment what is happening and what you are living and doing and loving and enduring in union with Jesus for the good of all living souls on the Earth - especially those most troubled, lost, suffering, sinful, and violent - and for the glory of God.
God bless you and your family.
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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.
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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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