Perfect Activity: Perfect Passivity to God
I to my beloved; my beloved to me - who feedeth among the lilies. (Cant 6:3)
Consider how the lilies grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass which flourishes in the field today but tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith. As for you, do not seek what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; and do not exalt yourselves, for after all these things the nations of the world seek. But your Father knows that you need these things. Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall he given you besides.(Mt 6:28-33)
Be not solicitous about what you shall eat and what you shall put on. What you should want is nothing, just like the lilies want nothing. "I to my beloved" expresses the relation, but as soon as you want something in order to satisfy your desire to take delight in yourself - whether it he to eat, to clothe yourself or anything else, spiritual as well as carnal - there is something that comes between you and God, and it is no longer "I to my beloved and my beloved to me." Your relation to God is based on something you want in order to take delight in yourself.
God's whole purpose is to get us to the point where we take delight only in him; and then we love everything. Martha was complaining that Mary wasn't helping her, but Mary was taking delight in Jesus; she chose the best part. God doesn't want you to be a vegetable; He wants you to have the same passivity in relation to Him that Mary had: not to be preoccupied with anything you want in your own right, so that when He loves you perfectly according to your nature, you’ll act, but you won’t allow your desires to get ahead of your relation to God. The perfection of our activity is in our perfect passivity to God. The more perfectly you allow God to move you freely, the more, perfectly you act. When you don't trust God you’ll get preoccupied with what you think you need - spiritually, goodness and virtues; and physically, food, clothes, etc. - and you are closed to God so he can't move you.
Each morning you should turn your mind away from everything. In your fallen nature you would start the day with all your preoccupations; they would take precedence over your relation to God. What you should want is what God moves you to want when you want only Him.
During the day if you have a job to do, your mind should be on the job, but if you start the day the way you should, you would do the job like St. Paul: "I live, not I, but Jesus lives in me."(Gal 2:20) God will be using things through you because you won't be attached to anything you do. When you’re thinking of nothing except God, or when you're working in God, in both ways you’re giving yourself to God totally. It is the same relation: "I to my beloved, my beloved to me." If God wants you to be doing something during the day, you're doing it because He wants it and in the way He wants it.
Our whole being is in our perfection in God. We exist because God sustains our being. The perfection of our operation is allowing God to act in us. In our action, when we're supposed to be acting, we allow Him to move us the way He wants and at the same time we're concerned with what we're doing. We can be so united with Him that as soon as we want something in a disordered way, we would become aware of that. We would renew our union with Him and then go on doing what He wants.
In the morning, when you contemplate, you set the day with this act of union with God and you work in the spirit of contemplation. Then you would know when something was taking hold of you, you would feel the anxiety, and you would hear Him saying, "Come over to Me all ye who are burdened."(Mt 11:28)
If you make a lot of interior noise you can't hear what God is saying. He stops speaking, because you don't listen. The one who would know best how to operate an automobile would be the engineer who designed it. The more perfect we are in relation to God, the more perfectly we act in accordance with our own nature. As soon as we want something which is not moved by God, there is a disorder in the way we operate. That is why He says, "Come over to Me ..." Mt 11:28) If you're burdened by anything you come to Him immediately. Otherwise you're like a ship without a rudder. What you have to cultivate is a sensitivity of conscience, because the closer you are to God, the more sensitive you are to this need for Him, the less you’ll have to go astray before you realize this. Otherwise, hours could go by before you turn to Him.
It is so important to start the day this way because if you don't get this image in the beginning, what is going to happen for the rest of the day? If you start the day with your anxieties and preoccupations, they will just accumulate.
There is a right anxiety and a wrong anxiety. The right one comes from a certain tension because of your desire to do what God wants and the realization of your own inclination to do the opposite. That tension keeps you more united to God. Then there is an anxiety which is a sign of dissipation, a sign that you have lost your sense of God's presence, and then you're frustrated with everything you do. As a result of certain disorders, forgetting about God, you find yourself in an anxious state. But then without realizing it, you could get attached to the previous state when you weren't anxious. When you're recollected and you lose it, you feel anxious; you say, I have to get back to that recollected state. And the first thing you know you're not getting back to God you're getting back to that "recollected state”. God wants you to come to Him the way you are. There would be a kind of pain, or the right sense of guilt, which you would not try to remove but would accept as a kind of punishment for what you have done. What you want in that experience is to be on guard against wanting a "perfect state”.
The peace is the peace Jesus gives you no matter what you have done before; in that moment you have peace the way He wants to give it. You might have a feeling of guilt, but it doesn't separate you from God but really brings you closer to Him. You depend on Him more totally. "All things work together for those who love God."(Rm 8:28) Through your impurity you can become more pure, because your impurity prevents you from thinking your relation to God depends on your purity.
You have to be patient and bear with yourself in the knowledge of your own unacceptability to God in yourself. But give Him what he paid for! (1Cor 6:19f) When you want to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling, that is wrong. God wants to give you more of His divine life by showing you what you are in yourself so you will become more receptive to Him. In the peace after you have sinned, you are more receptive to Him. There is a spirit of optimism which is a far cry from justifying yourself. This peace is more subtle than euphoria. There is a kind of sensible peace when everything feels right. But in the right state you know that everything is right; it is a spiritual euphoria which is compatible with a certain distress in the realization of what you are, but not a morbid distress over what you have done. By the fact that you see what you are in yourself, your love of God is purified. You see that the only motive God could have for loving you is His goodness. When you cleave to God knowing that, you're growing in God's divine life. You could be revolted when you see what you are, but this experience, far from interfering with your relationship with God, actually brings you closer to Him.
"All things work together for those who love God."(Rm 8:28) Whatever God does to you is an expression of His love. It is very easy for us in our fallen nature to think that after we have done something, it is finished. When we recognize the infinite love that God has for us, no matter what we do, we’ll go back to Him. We would let nothing keep us from God, especially our own sins.
Whether you're thinking about God in the morning or you're working during the day, you're united with Him all the time and whenever you get pulled away from Him, you should be more and more sensitive about going back to Him at once. Be on guard especially about being united with Him by what you do.
Consider how the lilies grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass which flourishes in the field today but tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith. As for you, do not seek what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; and do not exalt yourselves, for after all these things the nations of the world seek. But your Father knows that you need these things. Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall he given you besides.(Mt 6:28-33)
Be not solicitous about what you shall eat and what you shall put on. What you should want is nothing, just like the lilies want nothing. "I to my beloved" expresses the relation, but as soon as you want something in order to satisfy your desire to take delight in yourself - whether it he to eat, to clothe yourself or anything else, spiritual as well as carnal - there is something that comes between you and God, and it is no longer "I to my beloved and my beloved to me." Your relation to God is based on something you want in order to take delight in yourself.
God's whole purpose is to get us to the point where we take delight only in him; and then we love everything. Martha was complaining that Mary wasn't helping her, but Mary was taking delight in Jesus; she chose the best part. God doesn't want you to be a vegetable; He wants you to have the same passivity in relation to Him that Mary had: not to be preoccupied with anything you want in your own right, so that when He loves you perfectly according to your nature, you’ll act, but you won’t allow your desires to get ahead of your relation to God. The perfection of our activity is in our perfect passivity to God. The more perfectly you allow God to move you freely, the more, perfectly you act. When you don't trust God you’ll get preoccupied with what you think you need - spiritually, goodness and virtues; and physically, food, clothes, etc. - and you are closed to God so he can't move you.
Each morning you should turn your mind away from everything. In your fallen nature you would start the day with all your preoccupations; they would take precedence over your relation to God. What you should want is what God moves you to want when you want only Him.
During the day if you have a job to do, your mind should be on the job, but if you start the day the way you should, you would do the job like St. Paul: "I live, not I, but Jesus lives in me."(Gal 2:20) God will be using things through you because you won't be attached to anything you do. When you’re thinking of nothing except God, or when you're working in God, in both ways you’re giving yourself to God totally. It is the same relation: "I to my beloved, my beloved to me." If God wants you to be doing something during the day, you're doing it because He wants it and in the way He wants it.
Our whole being is in our perfection in God. We exist because God sustains our being. The perfection of our operation is allowing God to act in us. In our action, when we're supposed to be acting, we allow Him to move us the way He wants and at the same time we're concerned with what we're doing. We can be so united with Him that as soon as we want something in a disordered way, we would become aware of that. We would renew our union with Him and then go on doing what He wants.
In the morning, when you contemplate, you set the day with this act of union with God and you work in the spirit of contemplation. Then you would know when something was taking hold of you, you would feel the anxiety, and you would hear Him saying, "Come over to Me all ye who are burdened."(Mt 11:28)
If you make a lot of interior noise you can't hear what God is saying. He stops speaking, because you don't listen. The one who would know best how to operate an automobile would be the engineer who designed it. The more perfect we are in relation to God, the more perfectly we act in accordance with our own nature. As soon as we want something which is not moved by God, there is a disorder in the way we operate. That is why He says, "Come over to Me ..." Mt 11:28) If you're burdened by anything you come to Him immediately. Otherwise you're like a ship without a rudder. What you have to cultivate is a sensitivity of conscience, because the closer you are to God, the more sensitive you are to this need for Him, the less you’ll have to go astray before you realize this. Otherwise, hours could go by before you turn to Him.
It is so important to start the day this way because if you don't get this image in the beginning, what is going to happen for the rest of the day? If you start the day with your anxieties and preoccupations, they will just accumulate.
There is a right anxiety and a wrong anxiety. The right one comes from a certain tension because of your desire to do what God wants and the realization of your own inclination to do the opposite. That tension keeps you more united to God. Then there is an anxiety which is a sign of dissipation, a sign that you have lost your sense of God's presence, and then you're frustrated with everything you do. As a result of certain disorders, forgetting about God, you find yourself in an anxious state. But then without realizing it, you could get attached to the previous state when you weren't anxious. When you're recollected and you lose it, you feel anxious; you say, I have to get back to that recollected state. And the first thing you know you're not getting back to God you're getting back to that "recollected state”. God wants you to come to Him the way you are. There would be a kind of pain, or the right sense of guilt, which you would not try to remove but would accept as a kind of punishment for what you have done. What you want in that experience is to be on guard against wanting a "perfect state”.
The peace is the peace Jesus gives you no matter what you have done before; in that moment you have peace the way He wants to give it. You might have a feeling of guilt, but it doesn't separate you from God but really brings you closer to Him. You depend on Him more totally. "All things work together for those who love God."(Rm 8:28) Through your impurity you can become more pure, because your impurity prevents you from thinking your relation to God depends on your purity.
You have to be patient and bear with yourself in the knowledge of your own unacceptability to God in yourself. But give Him what he paid for! (1Cor 6:19f) When you want to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling, that is wrong. God wants to give you more of His divine life by showing you what you are in yourself so you will become more receptive to Him. In the peace after you have sinned, you are more receptive to Him. There is a spirit of optimism which is a far cry from justifying yourself. This peace is more subtle than euphoria. There is a kind of sensible peace when everything feels right. But in the right state you know that everything is right; it is a spiritual euphoria which is compatible with a certain distress in the realization of what you are, but not a morbid distress over what you have done. By the fact that you see what you are in yourself, your love of God is purified. You see that the only motive God could have for loving you is His goodness. When you cleave to God knowing that, you're growing in God's divine life. You could be revolted when you see what you are, but this experience, far from interfering with your relationship with God, actually brings you closer to Him.
"All things work together for those who love God."(Rm 8:28) Whatever God does to you is an expression of His love. It is very easy for us in our fallen nature to think that after we have done something, it is finished. When we recognize the infinite love that God has for us, no matter what we do, we’ll go back to Him. We would let nothing keep us from God, especially our own sins.
Whether you're thinking about God in the morning or you're working during the day, you're united with Him all the time and whenever you get pulled away from Him, you should be more and more sensitive about going back to Him at once. Be on guard especially about being united with Him by what you do.