The Joy of Full Surrender – Abandonment to Divine Providence

Abandonment to Divine Providence
By Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Abandonment to Divine Providence (also known in another translation as the Joy of Full Surrender)  has been a life-changing book for me. Aside from scripture, it is the only book that I have read through multiple times (at least three cover to cover). The great power of the book comes through Lectio Divina or meditation on the content versus reading at a purely intellectually level. Read in the former manner, it will provide rich spiritual transformation as you begin to recognize God’s loving presence in each moment. With this recognition and the resulting impact on our relationship with God,  we are better able to leave the challenges of the present and future completely in His hands. If you struggle with worry, anxiety, or if you desire to know Christ more fully each moment, this book is an unparalleled resource.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

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Do you have to know you are committing a sin in order to actually commit one?

Q: Do you have to know you are committing a sin in order to actually commit one?

A: You would think this simple question has a simple answer. But it doesn’t. We have to get a little theological here to unravel it, but I’ll try to be brief anyhow.

First of all, we have to remember what sin is. Sin is rebellion against God. It is saying to God, “I don’t want to do what you want me to do.” (For more on the nature of sin, you can you seen the posts on scrupulosity and bad thoughts) Right away, then, we can see that every sin has two poles.

Evil Effects Follow Evil Actions

In the first place, there is the action itself. As human beings, our actions can be conscious thoughts, words, or deeds. (Digesting lunch isn’t really a human action, because we don’t do it consciously). So a sin is, in the first place, a (conscious) thought, word, or deed that goes against God’s will. Now, we know that God’s will is as full of wisdom as the ocean is full of water (see Psalm 36:6). And his wisdom is intrinsically connected to his limitless love, his overflowing goodness, and his absolute omnipotence. To go against his will, then, is not a smart thing to do. It’s like going against the manufacturer’s instructions – like putting sand in the gas tank of our car, or drying out a wet cell phone by putting it in a hot oven for a couple of hours. It does damage.

It’s important to have that clear. Any thought, word, or action that goes against God’s will (that violates the natural moral law, the Ten Commandments, the teachings of his Church…) will cause some kind of damage to one’s own person, and to the world around us. We may not always see it right away, but it is there, and it will show up, sooner or later. God doesn’t make up a random list of sins out of thin air. Disobedience to God is disobedience to God’s wise plan for human life, for our life; it’s trying to fly without wings. To describe this first aspect of sin, we can use the term “evil action.”

To Blame or Not To Blame

In the second place, sin involves the conscious choice to perform such a rebellious action. This is why, for example, someone who is driving drunk and causes a fatal accident is not necessarily guilty of the sin of murder (they didn’t consciously intend to kill), but they are guilty of the sin of drunkenness (they chose to abuse alcohol). This is also why a criminal who forces a banker at gunpoint to unlock a safe doesn’t make the banker guilty of the sin of theft – the banker opened the safe against his will. Where there is no free choice, there can be no moral responsibility.

But our distinctions don’t end there. The conscious choice to perform an evil action can itself be culpable or not culpable. In other words, we can be responsible for the evil choice or not responsible for it. If I am responsible for it, then I become morally guilty for the evil committed and its consequences. If I am not responsible for it, then I am morally innocent.

For example, if a little boy grows up with parents who are thieves and who teach him to follow in their footsteps, that child may grow up convinced that stealing from non-family members is not an evil action. In that case, whenever he steals from non-family members, although he is freely committing an objectively evil action, he is not aware that it is evil (he doesn’t know that it is a sin). So, the damage is done, both to his soul (he deepens his habits of deception and dishonesty) and to the world around him (the pain and suffering caused by injustice), but he is not morally culpable for it – not guilty.

On the other hand, if a little boy grows up in a normal family environment, his natural, God-given sense of right and wrong will be nourished by the words and example of his parents and education. In this case, he will know that he shouldn’t take anything that doesn’t belong to him. And so, when he goes off to summer camp for the first time and discovers that his roommate has a collection of candy bars, he knows that taking one of them without permission is an evil action. And so, if he takes one anyway, he is responsible for the evil – guilty.

The Hazy Days of Sinners

This all seems obvious. But in real life the line between culpability and non-culpability often gets hazy. As the first little boy grows up, for example, at some point he will realize that other people don’t live like thieves. At some point his natural, God-given sense of right and wrong will flash a thought into his mind: “What is this person going to do if I steal their credit card and max it out at the cash machine?” It may be a very quiet qualm of conscience, but at some point, unless he has become psychopathic or sociopathic, the qualm will surface. At that point, doesn’t he become culpable, even though he had such a twisted upbringing?

A classic example of this haziness in the realm of moral responsibility is the case of the guards in charge of exterminating prisoners during the Nazi holocaust. Was it truly possible that they didn’t realize, at some level of consciousness, that they were destroying fellow human beings? Are the guards morally innocent because they were simply following orders?… When we start to wrestle with tangled cases like that, it is relief to remember that God is the perfect judge.

Here is an example of haziness (uncertainty about what’s right or wrong in a specific situation) that’s a little closer to home. Imagine that the government makes a mistake in my favor and sends me an extra $1000 on a tax rebate. That money really doesn’t belong to me, which means it belongs to someone else. So, shouldn’t I send it back to the government? But wait, doesn’t the government charge too much money in taxes anyway, and wasn’t it their mistake? Is taking that extra rebate (which I may really need) stealing? Some good Catholics would keep that money without batting an eye, thanking God for it. Others would send it back immediately, convinced that it was a temptation from the Devil. On rare occasions, then, knowing right and wrong is tricky business, business that keeps moral theologians busy.

Getting Down to Brass Tacks

Now we are ready to answer your question. To be guilty of an evil action, I must be aware that it is evil, that it is morally wrong. That awareness may be clear or fuzzy. The clearer it is, the more guilty I am. To be guilty of an evil action, I also have to freely make the evil choice. The greater the degree of freedom, the great the culpability. If I commit an evil action without awareness of the evil or when my freedom is impaired, however, the evil is still committed; damage is done. This is why ignorance is NOT bliss. Fornication still wounds souls and societies, even if the fornicators have never been taught that fornication is wrong.

The spiritual consequences of this long answer to your very short question are pretty obvious. We need to make a decent effort not only to do what’s good and avoid what’s evil, but also, to know what’s right and wrong – it’s much easier to walk quickly and surely in the daylight than in the dark. We have to inform ourselves about what the Church teaches and why, going beyond the Google News sound bites about the Pope’s latest encyclical. That’s why you are reading this Q&A, and that’s why faithful Catholic resources like www.ncregister.com and www.faithandfamilylive.com are so invaluable to us.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

XXI – Modeled After the Incarnate Word

The workings of God within us carry out in the course of time the designs which Eternal Wisdom has formed in regard to everything. In God all things have their own design, and His wisdom alone knows what that is. Though you read the will of God in regard to others, this knowledge cannot direct you in anything. In the Incarnate Word, in God Himself, is the design after which you were meant to be formed and which is the model of His work in you. In the Word, the divine action sees that to which every soul must be conformed. The Holy Scriptures contain one part of this design, and the divine activity formed by the Holy Spirit within the soul completes the design set forth by the Word. We must understand that the only way of receiving the impression of this eternal design is to remain quietly submissive to it, and that neither effort nor mental speculation can help us to attain it.

Is it not evident that a work such as this cannot be effected by subtlety of mind, skill, or intelligence, but can only follow on our submissive self-surrender to God’s will, yielding ourselves like metal to a mold, or canvas to the brush, or stone in the hands of the sculptor. Is it not clear that a knowledge of all the divine mysteries which the will of God carries out in all ages is not what makes us conformable to the design the Word has conceived for us? No, it is the impress of the divine Hand. This imprint is not graven on our minds by ideas, but in the will by its submission to the will of God.

The wisdom of the simple soul consists in being content with its own business, in confining itself within the boundary of its path, and not going beyond its limits. It is not curious about God’s ways of acting, but is content with God’s will in regard to itself, making no effort to discover hidden meanings by comparisons or conjectures, but only desiring to understand what each moment reveals. It listens to the voice of the Word when it sounds in the depths of the heart. It does not ask what the divine Bridegroom has said to others, but is satisfied with what it receives for itself, so that moment by moment by everything, however insignificant or whatever its nature, the soul is sanctified without knowing it. In this way the Bridegroom speaks to His Bride, by the solid effects of His actions which the soul accepts with loving gratitude without curious scrutiny.

Thus the spirituality of such a soul is perfectly simple, absolutely solid, permeating its whole being. Its actions are not determined by ideas or by a tumult of words, which by themselves would only serve to inflate pride. People make a great use of the intellect in piety, yet it is of little use, and often detrimental to true piety. We must make use only of what God’s will gives us to do or to suffer, and not forsake this divine essential to occupy our minds with the historic wonders of God’s work, but rather we should increase these wonders by our own faithfulness.

The marvels of these works of God, which we read about to satisfy our curiosity, often tend only to disgust us with things that seem trifling, but by which, if we do not despise them, God’s love effects very great things in us. Foolish creatures that we are! We admire, we bless God’s action in written history, but when His love is ready to continue this writing on our hearts, we keep moving the paper and preventing its writing by our curiosity, to see what it is doing in us and what is is accomplishing elsewhere.

Forgive, divine Love, these defects; I can see them all in myself, and I have not yet learned what it is to abandon myself to Your hand. I have not yet yielded myself to the mold. I have walked through all Your workshops and admired all Your works of art, but have not as yet had the self-surrender needed to receive even the bare outlines of your brush. But at last I have found You, my dear Master, Teacher, Father, my beloved Friend.

Now I will be Your disciple; I will attend to no other school than Yours. I return, like the prodigal, hungering for Your bread. I relinquish the ideas which tend only to satisfy my curiosity. I will no longer run after teachers and books; no, I will use them only as Your holy will ordains them, not for my gratification but to obey You, by accepting all that You send me. I will confine myself solely to the duty of the present moment in order to prove my love and leave You free to do with me what You will.

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade - Purchase The Joy of Full Surrender

Abandonment XX – God’s Will Effects Sanctification

It is only because they do not know how to make use of God’s action that so many Christians spend their lives anxiously pursuing a multitude of methods of perfection. These might prove useful if ordained by God’s will, but they actually become injurious the moment they keep us from simply surrendering ourselves to God’s will. These multiplied means cannot give what we find only in the will of God – that principle of all life which is constantly with us, and which stamps each of its instruments with its own character and causes its original and unique action in us.

Jesus has given us a teacher whom we do not heed sufficiently. He speaks to every heart and to each one he utters the word of life, the only word applicable to us. But we do not hear it. We want to know what he has said to others and do not listen to what has said to us. We do not sufficiently regard circumstances as having been given a supernatural significance by God’s action. We should always accept them with the perfect confidence they merit, with an open heart and with generosity, sure that nothing will harm those who receive them this way. This limitless activity, which is the same from the beginning to the end of time, goes on every moment, giving itself in all its greatness and strength to the simple soul who adores it, loves it, and rejoices in it alone.

You would be delighted, you say, to find an opportunity of dying for God’s sake. Such heroism enchants you. To lose all, to die, forsaken and alone, to sacrifice your life for others – such are the glorious deeds that charm you!

As for me, O Lord, let me glorify Your will in all things. In it I find all the happiness of martyrdom, bodily austerities, and the sacrifice of self for others. Your will is enough, and I am content to live and die as it decrees. It pleases me more for its own sake than all the means it uses and the effects it produces, because it permeates all things and makes them divine, and transforms them all into itself. It is heaven on earth to me, and all my moments are full of God’s action. So living or dying, I shall always remain content with that.

Yes, my Beloved, I shall no longer single out times or ways but shall welcome You always and in any fashion. It seems to me, O divine Will, as if You had revealed your immensity to me. I will walk henceforth in the bosom of Your infinity, You who are the same today, yesterday, and forever. Streams of mercy never-ceasing have their springs in You. From You they begin and continue, and they are changed at Your will. No longer will I seek You within narrow limits of a book or the life of a saint, or of some sublime idea. No, these are but drops of that great ocean that covers every created thing. Your divine will floods them all. They are but atoms that disappear  in this unfathomable sea. I will no longer look for Your will merely in the thoughts of spiritual persons. No longer will I beg my bread from door to door. I will depend on no creature, but I will live as the child of an infinitely good, wise and powerful Father whom I desire to please and make happy. I would live as I believe, and since Your activity works in everything and at every moment for my sanctification, I will draw my life from this great and boundless reservoir, ever present and ever available in the most practical way.

Is there any creature anywhere whose action equals that of God? And since this uncreated Hand directs all that comes to me shall I go in search of aid from created things? Such creatures are powerless, ignorant, and indifferent to me, and I should die of thirst rushing from one fountain to another, from one stream to another, when there is a sea at hand whose waters surround me on every side.

Yes, all that happens to me becomes bread to nourish me, soap to cleanse me, fire to purify me, a chisel to carve heavenly features on me. Everything is a channel of grace for my needs. The very thing I sought everywhere else seeks me incessantly, and gives itself to me by means of all created things.

O Love of God, will men never see that You meet them at every step, while they seek You here and there, where You are not to be found? How foolish to be in open country and not breathe its pure air! to search for a spot on which to place my foot when I may find Him and taste Him and find His will present in everything!

Good people, do you seek the secret of belonging to God? The only way is to make use of everything He sends you. Everything leads to this union. Everything may perfect it except sin and that which is contrary to your duty. You have but to accept all that he sends and let it do its work in you.

Everything is intended to guide, uphold and support you. Everything is the hand of God. God’s action is vaster and more present to you than the elements of earth, air, and water. God will even enter by means of all the senses, provided you use them only as He ordains, because you must guard them and close them to all that is contrary to His will. There is not a single atom in your frame, even the marrow of your bones, that is not formed by divine power. From that power everything proceeds. By it all things are made. Your very life-blood flows through your veins by movement His power imparts. All the variations of your system, between strength and weakness, sluggishness and liveliness, life and death are divine means put in motion to effect your sanctification. Under His will, every bodily state becomes an operation of grace. All your thoughts, all your emotions, whatever their apparent source, proceed from this invisible hand. No created mind or heart can teach you what His divine action will do in you. You will learn it through experience. Your life flows on unceasingly into this unfathomable Sea, where we have but to love and accept at best what each present moment brings, with perfect trust in God’s divine action, His will which can only work for good.

Yes, divine Love! All souls might attain supernatural, praiseworthy, incomparably sublime states if they would only be satisfied with Your will in action!

Yes, if they would but leave matters in this divine hand, they would attain a notable degree of holiness! Everyone would arrive at it because it is offered to all. You have but to open your heart and God will act. Every soul possesses in You, O God, an infinitely perfect model, and by Your action You work ceaselessly to make us in Your image. If we were faithful, we would all live, act and speak divinely. We would not need to copy one another, but would be shaped individually through the most ordinary things.

How, O my God, can I make your children appreciate what is offered to them? Must I, possessing a treasure that could make the whole world rich, see beloved souls perish in poverty? Must I watch them withering like plants in a desert when I can show them the source of living waters?

Come, simple souls, you who have no feeling of devotion, no talent, not even the first elements of instruction – you who cannot understand a single spiritual term, who stand astonished at the eloquence of the learned whom you admire; come, and I will teach you a secret which will place you far beyond these clever minds. I will make perfection so easy you will find it everywhere and in everything. I will unite you to God, and He will hold you by the hand from the moment you begin to practice what I tell you. Come, not to learn the map of this spiritual country, but to possess it, to walk in it at your ease without fear of losing your way. Come, not to study the theory of God’s grace, or to learn what it has done in the past and is still doing, but simply to be open yourself to what it can do. You do not need to know what it has said to others, or repeat words intended only for them which you have overheard. His grace will speak to you, yourself, what is best for you.

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade - Purchase The Joy of Full Surrender