[372] Handsome constructions whose irremediable vice is to have been made by the hand of man and outside the divine plan! To consecrate one's energies to such realizations is usually to depart from the will of God.
Meanwhile, God's real designs in our regard declare themselves, upsetting our own preconceived ones. The result, at least momentarily, is discouragement and disillusionment, unless we begin to reconstruct at once in our own fashion. And perhaps God will permit us to work things out as we foresaw, and to enjoy a success which might even appear brilliant, but which is always only mediocre because superficial and human under a supernatural veneer. Our generosity was spent for ourself and our own projects; it missed the plan of God because it did not make an undetermined gift.
It is truly in the dark that one must look for the design of God; for His thoughts are above human thoughts as heaven, earth. Our God dwells in darkness; the transcendent light of [373] His Wisdom blinds our poor eyes. What is our part, what is our place in His divine plan? He alone knows. The part that we must do, the place that we are to fill, in these is our perfection. The gift of self—which is meant to be made in view of the part and place reserved to us in the divine work and edifice—must seek them in mystery and surrender to that mystery which hides and guards them jealously, awaiting the hour for realization. Thus the gift of self must be indeterminate in order not to go astray in purely human projects, but to be at one with the divine reality and truth. [...]
The holy indifference which is its fruit frees the soul from those bitter disappointments that paralyze it for a moment and sometimes break one's spirit definitely.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 372–373.
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