The Work of God in the Soul of Man

O my God! What a consolation it is to know that everything within as well as without me is the work of your hand! You are ever with me. When I do wrong, You are within me, reproaching me for the evil which I do, raising within me regrets for the good which I abandon, and opening to me Your arms of mercy.

When I do good, You inspire the desire for it in me; it is You who awakens me to love the good. You, it is my delight to believe, are working incessantly within me. You work invisibly like a miner in the depths of the earth. You do everything, and yet the world does not see You nor understand You, and attributes nothing to You. Even I wandered everywhere vainly searching for You—outside of myself. I searched all over the wonders of nature that I might form some conception of Your greatness; I asked Your creatures of You and not once thought of finding You in the depths of my heart, where You had never ceased to dwell. No, O my God! It is not necessary to descend into the depths of the ocean; it is not necessary to ascend into the heavens to find You; You are nearer to us than we are to ourselves. O my God! who are both so great and yet so graciously humble at the same time, so high above the heavens and yet so condescending to the lowest creature, so infinite and so intimately enclosed in the depths of my heart, so terrible and so lovely, so jealous and so easily approachable by those who would converse with You with the familiarity of pure love; when will your children cease to be ignorant of You? Where shall I find a voice loud enough to reproach the whole world for its blindness, and to tell it with authority all that You are?

When we bid men look for You in their own hearts, it is as though we bade them search for You in the remotest and most unknown part of the world! What territory is more distant or more unknown to the greater part of them, vain and dissipated as they are, than the deepest recesses of their own hearts? Do they ever experience what it means to look within themselves? Have they ever endeavoured to find the way? Can they even form the most distant conception of the nature of that interior sanctuary, that impenetrable depth of the soul where You desire to be worshipped in spirit and in truth? They are ever outside of themselves in the objects of their ambition or of their pleasure. Alas! How can they understand heavenly truths, since, as Jesus says, they cannot even comprehend those which are earthly? They cannot conceive what it is to look within themselves through deep and serious reflection; what would they say if they were told to come out of themselves that they might lose themselves in God?

As for me, my Creator, I shut my eyes to all exterior things, which are but emptiness and a vexation, that wears away at my spirit, that I may enjoy, in the deepest recesses of my heart, an intimate companionship with You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who is Your Wisdom and Eternal Understanding. He became flesh and submitted to the reproach of the cross and death, that He might put to shame our vain and lying wisdom. In Him, I will become small and humble. Cost what it may, and despite my fears and speculations, I desire to become lowly and a fool, still more despicable in my own eyes than in those of the wise in their own conceit. Like the apostles, I would become filled and fortified by the Holy Spirit, and be content with them to bear the ridicule and mockery of the world.