Daily Thought For March 2, 2015
The Joy of Divine Providence
My DEAR SISTER,—I am touched by your sympathy in my trials, but I am glad to be able to reassure you. It is true that at first I suffered acutely on seeing myself burdened with a quantity of business and anxieties contrary to my liking for solitude and silence, but see how divine Providence has come to my aid. God gives me the grace to remain unattached to all these affairs, so that my spirit remains always free. I leave their successful issue to his paternal care, so that nothing distresses me. Often things go all right and I give thanks to God; sometimes everything goes wrong, I again bless his holy name and offer him the sacrifice of my efforts. Once this sacrifice has been made, God arranges everything.
Already our good Master has prepared several of these agreeable surprises for me. As for leisure, I have more than anywhere else. At the moment visits are rare, because I only pay them out of duty and pure necessity. Our Fathers themselves, who know my tastes, soon finish their business with me and as they are convinced that I do not act as I do out of pride or misanthropy no one disapproves of my behavior and several are edified by it.
Moreover, I am not as dead as you think; but God gives me the grace not to bother about disapproval when I am following the path on which he calls me. Our concern is to please him only; ifhe is content, that is enough for us, all the rest is a mere nothing. In a few days we shall make our appearance before this great God, this sovereign Master, this infinite Being. Of what use then (and for all eternity) will anything be that was not done for his sake and animated by his grace and Spirit?
If these simple truths were a little more familiar to us, what peace of heart and mind should we not enjoy already in our present life! From how many vain fears, desires and anxieties, both for this life and the next, should we not be delivered! I will confess to you that since my return to France I begin to envisage more closely than ever the end of this sad life of ours, and I do so with much peace and tranquillity. How could I feel anything but joy, when I see the end of my exile approaching?
Fr. J.P. de Caussade, S.J. Self-Abandonment To Divine Providence pp.114-15