Christian Counsel: 20: Privation and Annihilation, A Terror Even to the Spiritually-Minded
By Francois Fenelon
There is scarce any one who desires to serve God, but does so for selfish reasons; we expect gain and not loss, consolation and not suffering, riches and not poverty, increase and not diminution. But the whole interior work is of an opposite character; to be lost, sacrificed, made less than nothing, and despoiled of an excessive delight, even in the gifts of God, that we may be forced to cling to Him alone.
We are like a patient eagerly desiring returning health, who feels his own pulse forty times a day, and requires his physician to prescribe frequent doses of various remedies, and to give him a daily assurance that he is getting better. Such is almost the only use we make of our spiritual conductors. We travel in a little round of every-day virtues, never gathering sufficient courage to pass generously beyond it, and our guides, like the doctor, flatter, console, encourage and strengthen our selfish sensitiveness, and administer pleasant remedies, to the effects of which we soon become insensible.
The moment we find ourselves deprived of the delights of grace, that milk for babes, we are at once in despair; a manifest proof that we were looking to the means, instead of to the end, and solely for selfish gratification.
Privations are meat for men; by them the soul is rendered hardy, is separated from self, and offered in a pure sacrifice to God; but we give up all, the moment they commence. We cannot but think that everything is going to ruin, when, in fact, the foundations are just beginning to be solidly laid. Nothing would give us more delight than that God should do all his pleasure with us, provided it should always be to magnify and perfect us in our own eyes. But if we are not willing to be destroyed and annihilated, we shall never become that whole burnt offering, which is entirely consumed in the blaze of God's love.
We desire to enter into a state of pure faith, and retain our own wisdom! To be a babe, and great in our own eyes! Ah! what a sad delusion!
By Francois Fenelon
There is scarce any one who desires to serve God, but does so for selfish reasons; we expect gain and not loss, consolation and not suffering, riches and not poverty, increase and not diminution. But the whole interior work is of an opposite character; to be lost, sacrificed, made less than nothing, and despoiled of an excessive delight, even in the gifts of God, that we may be forced to cling to Him alone.
We are like a patient eagerly desiring returning health, who feels his own pulse forty times a day, and requires his physician to prescribe frequent doses of various remedies, and to give him a daily assurance that he is getting better. Such is almost the only use we make of our spiritual conductors. We travel in a little round of every-day virtues, never gathering sufficient courage to pass generously beyond it, and our guides, like the doctor, flatter, console, encourage and strengthen our selfish sensitiveness, and administer pleasant remedies, to the effects of which we soon become insensible.
The moment we find ourselves deprived of the delights of grace, that milk for babes, we are at once in despair; a manifest proof that we were looking to the means, instead of to the end, and solely for selfish gratification.
Privations are meat for men; by them the soul is rendered hardy, is separated from self, and offered in a pure sacrifice to God; but we give up all, the moment they commence. We cannot but think that everything is going to ruin, when, in fact, the foundations are just beginning to be solidly laid. Nothing would give us more delight than that God should do all his pleasure with us, provided it should always be to magnify and perfect us in our own eyes. But if we are not willing to be destroyed and annihilated, we shall never become that whole burnt offering, which is entirely consumed in the blaze of God's love.
We desire to enter into a state of pure faith, and retain our own wisdom! To be a babe, and great in our own eyes! Ah! what a sad delusion!
See Also:
1: Of the Little Knowledge of God there is in the World
2: Of the Necessity of Knowing and Loving God
3: On Pure Love
4: On Prayer and the Principal Exercises of Piety
5: On Conformity to the Life of Jesus Christ
6: On Humility
7: On Prayer
8: On Meditation
9: On Mortification
10: On Self-Abandonment
11: On Temptations
12: On Wandering Thoughts and Dejection
13: On Confidence in God
14: In What Manner We are to Watch Ourselves
15: On the Inward Teaching of the Spirit Of God
16: On Daily Faults and the Toleration of Ourselves
17: On Fidelity in Small Matters
18: On Transitory Emotions, Fidelity, and Simplicity
19: On The Advantages of Silence and Recollection
20: Privation and Annihilation, A Terror Even to the Spiritually-Minded
21: On The Proper Use of Crosses
22: On the Interior Operations of God to Bring Man to the True End of His Creation
23: On Christian Perfection
24: The Way of Naked Faith and Pure Love is Better and More Certain than that of Illuminations and Sensible Delights
25: On the Presence of God
26: On Conformity to the Will of God
27: General Directions for Attaining Inward Peace
28: Pure Love Only Can Suffer Aright and Love its Sufferings
29: Interested and Disinterested Love Have Each its Appropriate Season
30: On True Liberty
31: On the Employment of Time
1: Of the Little Knowledge of God there is in the World
2: Of the Necessity of Knowing and Loving God
3: On Pure Love
4: On Prayer and the Principal Exercises of Piety
5: On Conformity to the Life of Jesus Christ
6: On Humility
7: On Prayer
8: On Meditation
9: On Mortification
10: On Self-Abandonment
11: On Temptations
12: On Wandering Thoughts and Dejection
13: On Confidence in God
14: In What Manner We are to Watch Ourselves
15: On the Inward Teaching of the Spirit Of God
16: On Daily Faults and the Toleration of Ourselves
17: On Fidelity in Small Matters
18: On Transitory Emotions, Fidelity, and Simplicity
19: On The Advantages of Silence and Recollection
20: Privation and Annihilation, A Terror Even to the Spiritually-Minded
21: On The Proper Use of Crosses
22: On the Interior Operations of God to Bring Man to the True End of His Creation
23: On Christian Perfection
24: The Way of Naked Faith and Pure Love is Better and More Certain than that of Illuminations and Sensible Delights
25: On the Presence of God
26: On Conformity to the Will of God
27: General Directions for Attaining Inward Peace
28: Pure Love Only Can Suffer Aright and Love its Sufferings
29: Interested and Disinterested Love Have Each its Appropriate Season
30: On True Liberty
31: On the Employment of Time
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