36 — INTERIOR TRIALS

Presence of God. — O Lord, purify me like gold in the crucible; purify me and spare me not that I may arrive at You.

Meditation

1 — If the Lord finds you strong and faithful, humble and patient in accepting external trials, He will pass little by little to those more intimate, more spiritual to “purify you well within and do you greater goods more intimate” (cf. G.C.F. 2, 28). The passive night of the spirit culminates precisely with these interior pains by means of which God “crumbles and undoes the spiritual substance” (N. II, 6, 1) of the soul to make it be born again completely to divine life. We are, in fact, so compounded of miseries and defects and these are so adherent to our nature, that if God Himself does not lay His hands on us, almost undoing us and remaking us from head to foot, we shall never be freed from them. Even Jesus spoke of this total remaking, of this profound spiritual rebirth: “unless one be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3, 5); kingdom of God down here is the state of perfect union with Him, to which no one attains if first he is not totally purified.

St. John of the Cross has explained at length how such work of purification is accomplished precisely by the Holy Spirit who, investing the soul with the living flame of His love, destroys and consumes all its imperfections. “Until the divine flame — says the Saint — purges and disposes the soul, it is very troublesome to it: it is not a clear but dark flame, which, if it gives it a little light, does so that it may see and feel only its miseries and defects” (F. 1, 19). Although the soul finds itself under the direct action of the Holy Spirit, this action is not savorous to it, but painful because the first office that it accomplishes is precisely that of showing it all its weaknesses and miseries that, conceiving no horror, it may detest them, humble itself for them. The penetrating light of the “living flame of love” lifts the thick veil that hid from the soul the roots of its evil habits. In the face of such vision the soul suffers, not only because it feels humiliated by it, but also because it fears being repudiated by God; in fact, recognizing itself so miserable, it feels terribly unworthy of divine love and, indeed, at certain moments it seems to it even that the Lord, indignant, drives it away from Himself. This is the greatest torment that the soul can suffer, but it is a precious torment because it purifies it from every residue of self-love, of pride, because it digs in it that profound abyss of humility that invokes and attracts the abyss of divine mercies.

2 — If the Holy Spirit did not make you know and experience your misery, you could not be freed since, ignoring it, you could not cooperate with the work of purification that He wishes to accomplish in you. Therefore, when, through the failures of your spiritual life, the struggles and rebellions of nature, the divine light shows you the depths of your evil tendencies, you must humbly bear the sight, you must recognize and confess your weaknesses without excusing them, without blaming adverse circumstances, without turning your gaze elsewhere. These are the moments in which you must more than ever bow “under the mighty hand of God” (1 Pt. 5, 6), who makes you see what in reality you are in His sight. On the other hand, the picture of your miseries, however ugly and abominable it may be, must not cast you into discouragement: this is not the end for which the Holy Spirit shows it to you, but rather that of despoiling you of every trace of secret esteem of yourself and of extinguishing in your heart — should there be any — any pretension of being worthy of divine favors and gifts. Nor must you believe that you have become worse than before; these miseries you have always borne in you, with the difference that before you ignored them, while now the divine light makes you see them clearly and shows them to you not to drown you in them, but to free you from them. Despite, then, all the suffering you may experience at the sight of your misery, you must remain trusting and sure that God will not abandon you. It is true, you have been unfaithful to Him, you have not corresponded as you ought to His love, the services you have rendered Him are very little, indeed they are nothing in comparison to what God deserves, yet He, infinitely good, does not despise your contrite and humbled heart. God loves you and, far from rejecting you, desires to unite you to Himself, but before doing so He wishes to render you perfectly aware that you are entirely unworthy of this great grace. God communicates Himself only to souls emptied of self, to souls reduced to nothing. But when, at last, He has brought the soul to the center of its nothingness, then He will exalt it, drawing it to Himself in the perfect union of love.

Colloquy

“O my soul, if you have remained wounded by sin, behold your Physician ready to heal you. His mercy is infinitely greater than all your iniquities. And I tell you this not that you may remain in your misery, but that, striving to overcome it, you may not despair of His clemency and His pardon.

“Your God is sweetness itself, the very suavity; what other good can one desire down here apart from Him?

“Do not abase yourself, O my soul, for your imperfections; your God does not despise you because you are imperfect and infirm; He, rather, loves you because you desire and seek to be healed of your miseries. He will come to your aid and will render you more perfect still than you would have dared to hope and, adorned by His very hand, your beauty will have no equal, like His goodness.

“Oh, Jesus my, tender Shepherd, sweet Master, succor me, raise up my little sheep cast down, stretch forth Your hand to sustain me, heal my wounds, strengthen my weakness, save me or I shall perish. I confess myself unworthy to live, unworthy of Your light, unworthy of Your succor, because my ingratitude has been immense; yet Your mercy is still much greater; have, then, pity on me, O God, who so loves men! Have pity on me, according to the greatness of Your mercies” (Bl. Louis de Blois).

“The abyss calls to another abyss. And there, O my God, precisely at the bottom, the encounter with You will take place: the abyss of my nothingness, of my misery, will find itself before the abyss of Your mercy, of the immensity of Your all; there shall I find the strength to die to myself and I shall be changed into love” (E.T. I, 1).