Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange on the Spirit of Confidence in Providence

The spirit that should animate our self-abandonment to Providence

Is it a spirit that depreciates our hope of salvation in the plea of advanced perfection, as the Quietists claimed? Quite the contrary: it must be a spirit of deep faith, confidence, and love.

The will of God, as expressed by His commandments, is that we should hope in Him and labor confidently in the work of our salvation in the face of every obstacle. This expressed will of God pertains to the domain of obedience, not of self-abandonment. This latter concerns the will of His good pleasure on which depends our still uncertain future, the daily occurrences in the course of our life, such as health and sickness, success and misfortune.

To sacrifice our salvation, our eternal happiness, on the plea of perfection, would be absolutely contrary to that natural inclination for happiness which, with our nature, we have from God. It would be contrary to Christian hope, not only to that possessed by the common run of the faithful, but also to that of the saints, who in the severest trials have hoped on "against all human hope," to use St. Paul's phrase (Rom. 4:18), even when all seemed lost. Nay, to sacrifice our eternal beatitude in this way would be contrary to charity itself, by which indeed we love God for His own sake and desire to possess Him that we may eternally proclaim His glory. [...]

Far from it: self-abandonment involves the exercise in an eminent degree of the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, as it were fused into one. [1]

It is nevertheless true to say that God purifies our desire from the self-love with which it may be tinged by leaving us in some uncertainty about it and so inducing us to love Him more exclusively for His own sake.

We should abandon ourselves to God in the spirit of faith, believing with St. Paul (Rom. 8:28) that "all things work together unto good" in the lives of those who love God and persevere in His love. Such an act of faith was that made by holy Job [....]

In the same spirit Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son in obedience to God's command, abandoning himself in the deepest faith to the divine will of good pleasure in all that concerned the future of his race. We are reminded of this by St. Paul when he tells us in the Epistle to the Hebrews (11:17): "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son (to whom it was said: in Isaac shall thy seed be called), accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead." Far less exacting are the trials we have to endure, though on account of our weakness they sometimes seem to weigh heavily upon us.

At any rate, let us believe with the saints that whatever the Lord does He does well, when He sends us humiliations and spiritual dryness as when He heaps honors and consolations upon us. As Father Piny remarks, nowhere is there a deeper or more lively faith than in the conviction that God arranges everything for our welfare, even when He appears to destroy us and overthrow our most cherished plans, when He allows us to be calumniated, to suffer permanent ill-health, and other afflictions still more painful. [2] This is great faith indeed, for it is to believe the apparently incredible: that God will raise us up by casting us down; and it is to believe this in a practical and living way, not merely an abstract and theoretical way. [...] Every one of us must by humility be numbered among [the] little ones, among those that hunger for divine truth which is the true bread of the soul.

While fulfilling our daily duties, then, we must abandon ourselves to almighty God in a spirit of deep faith, which must also be accompanied by an absolutely childlike confidence in His fatherly kindness. Confidence (fiducia or confidentia), says St. Thomas (IIaIIæ, q.129, a.6), is a steadfast or intensified hope arising from a deep faith in the goodness of God, who, according to His promises, is ever at hand to help us—Deus auxilians [NB: "helping/healing God"—a reference to the merciful omnipotence of God]. [3]

As the psalms declare: "Blessed are they that trust in the Lord" (2:12); "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion: he shall not be moved forever that dwelleth in Jerusalem" (124:1); "Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in Thee" (15:1); "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me not be confounded" (30:1).

St. Paul (Rom. 4:18) reminds us how Abraham, in spite of his advanced years, believed in the divine promise that he would be the father of many nations, and adds: "Against hope, he believed in hope. . . .  In the promise also of God he staggered not by distrust: but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God: most fully knowing that whatsoever He has promised, He is able to perform." [...]

As Father Piny notes, to do one's duty in all earnestness and then to resign oneself with entire confidence into our Lord's hands is the true mark of a member of His flock. What better way can there be of hearkening to the voice of the good Shepherd than by constantly acquiescing in all that He demands of us, lovingly beseeching Him to have pity on us, throwing ourselves confidently into the arms of His mercy with all our failings and regrets? By so doing, we are at the same time placing in His hands all our fears for both the past and the future. This holy self-abandonment is not at all opposed to hope, but is childlike confidence in its holiest form united with a love becoming ever more and more purified.

Love in its purest form, in fact, depends for its support upon the will of God, after the example of our Lord who said: "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work" (John 4:34); "Because I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me" (John 5:30). Thus no more perfect or nobler or purer way of loving God can be found than to make the divine will our own, fulfilling God's will as expressed to us and then abandoning ourselves entirely to His good pleasure. For souls that follow this road, God is everything: eventually, they can say in very truth: "My God and my all." God is their center; they find no peace but in Him, by submitting all their aspirations to His good pleasure and accepting tranquilly all that He does. At times of greatest difficulty St. Catherine of Siena would remember the Master's words to her: "Think of Me and I will think of thee."

Rare indeed are the souls that attain to such perfection as this. And yet it is the goal at which we all must aim. St. Francis de Sales says:

Our Lord loves with a most tender love those who are so happy as to abandon themselves wholly to His fatherly care, letting themselves be governed by His divine Providence, without any idle speculations as to whether the workings of this providence will be useful to them, to their profit, or painful to their loss, and this because they are well assured that nothing can be sent, nothing permitted by this paternal and most loving heart, which will not be a source of good and profit to them. All that is required is that they should place all their confidence in Him. . . . When, in fulfilling our daily duties, we abandon everything, our Lord takes care of everything and orders everything. . . .  The soul has nothing else to do but to rest in the arms of our Lord like a child on its mother's breast. When she puts it down to walk, it walks until she takes it up again, and when she wishes to carry it, she is allowed to do so. It neither knows nor thinks where it is going, but allows itself to be carried or led wherever its mother pleases. So this soul lets itself be carried when it lovingly accepts God's good pleasure in all things that happen, and walks when it carefully effects all that the known (expressed) will of God demands. [4]

Then it can truly say with our Lord: "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me" (John 4:34). Therein it finds its peace, which even now is in some sort the beginning of eternal life within us—inchoatio vitæ æternæ.

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Notes:

1. Certain authors have spoken of the virtue of self-abandonment. In reality the act of self-abandonment has its source not in a special virtue, but in the three theological virtues combined with the gift of piety.

2. In the lives of many saints we see how the appalling calumnies they had to endure became, by God's permission, the occasion of a marvelous increase in their love for Him.

3. We are especially reminded of this, the formal motive of hope, in the name of Jesus, which means Savior, and in various titles given to the Blessed Virgin: Help of Christians, Refuge of Sinners, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

4. St. Francis de Sales, Spiritual Conferences, tr. by Mackey, O.S.B., Conference II, p. 25. The interior conviction expressed in this passage, as proceeding from the theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, far surpasses any theological speculation.

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Source: Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Providence, trans. by Dom Bede Rose (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1998), 230-236.

Dom Vitalis Lehodey on God's Will of Good-Pleasure

"There is also His will of good-pleasure which we must look for in all events. I mean to say, in everything that befalls us: in sickness, in death, in affliction, in consolation, in adversity and prosperity; briefly, in all unforeseen occurrences" (St. Francis de Sales). [...] It is in tribulations especially we must recognise [sic] the will of God; not that He loves these for their own sake, but He employs them as an effective means of vindicating right order, of remedying our failings, of healing and sanctifying our souls. [...] He wills to draw good out of evil, and, with that object in view, to make our own and our neighbour's [sic] shortcomings serve for the sanctification of souls through the practice of penitence, patience, humility, mutual support and forbearance, etc. He wills also that we should sustain our neighbour [sic] even whilst fulfilling in his regard the duty of fraternal correction, [...] seeing in his necessities and his faults the instruments God makes use of to exercise us in virtue. On this account, St. Francis de Sales does not hesitate to declare that it is chiefly through our neighbour we learn what God demands of us. The signified will of God differs profoundly from His will of good-pleasure in three respects:

Firstly, the signified will is always made known to us in advance, and as a rule very clearly, by the usual expressions of thought, viz., speech and writing. Thus we have the Gospels, the laws of the Church, our holy rule; we can at our convenience read therein the will of God, commit it to memory, and make it the subject of our meditation. [...] On the other hand, we hardly ever know God's will of good-pleasure otherwise than through the sequence of events. The qualified expression--hardly ever--is employed, because to this rule there are real exceptions. Thus we can be certain beforehand as to what God intends to do in the future, if He has been pleased to inform us. One may also acquire this knowledge by presentiment, by conjecture, or surmise, either from the actual trend of affairs, or from wise precautions taken, or from imprudences [sic] committed. But in general the divine good-pleasure is only revealed by the course of events which ordinarily lie beyond our prevision. Even during the actual occurrence of events God's will for us may remain obscure. For instance, He sends us sickness, spiritual aridity, or some other such trial. This, we know, is His present good-pleasure. But for how long? And what is to be the issue? We know not.

Secondly, it is always in our power either by obedience to conform to the signified will or to withdraw ourselves therefrom by disobedience. [...] By His will of good-pleasure, on the contrary, He disposes of us as our Sovereign Master. Without consulting us, often even against our wishes, He puts us in the position He has chosen, and under the obligation of discharging the duties thereof. It remains in our power indeed to satisfy this obligation or not, to conform ourselves to the divine good-pleasure or to revolt against it; but whether we like it or not, we have no choice save to submit to the sequence of events, the course of which can be arrested by no earthly power. Thus, as Supreme Ruler and Judge, God restores order and punishes sin; as Father and Saviour [sic], He reminds us of our dependence, and endeavours [sic] to recall us to the paths of duty as often as we wander out of them and lose our way.

Thirdly, from what has been said it follows that God demands obedience to His signified will as an effect of our own free choice and determination. [...] We require no doubt a secret grace which forestalls and assists us, a grace which we can always obtain by prayer and fidelity. But the will of God being clearly indicated, when the moment for its fulfilment [sic] arrives, we have to act by our own free determination; there is no need to wait for a sensible movement of grace or for a special motion of the Holy Spirit [....] On the other hand, if there is a question of the will of good-pleasure, we must wait until God declares it by the course of events. Before this is done, we cannot tell what He requires of us. But then we understand what that is clearly enough: submission to His good-pleasure in the first place, and next the discharge of the duties appertaining to such or such a position chosen for us by Him.

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Source: Dom Vitalis Lehodey, Holy Abandonment, trans. by Ailbe J. Luddy (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2003), 10-13.