Spiritual Considerations

In the chapter on Impediments to Progress we read: "Once in a dream two friends were speaking together on spiritual things, and one offered to read an extract which she knew would please the spiritual Father. He intently listening, she read as follows: "If you will progress in a spiritual way, you must leave your hold of a thousand tons." The Father thought it very striking; but he saw at once it was putting an old truth in a new way: and after waking he remembered the saying, non nova, sed nove. Truly, in the natural order there is no getting on with plain impediments to progress. Fancy trying to walk with huge weights chaining the feet! Or to see the way in darkness without a light! Or to ascend a mountain in a sick and weakly condition! No reasoning is needed in cases of sheer incompatibility. Intuition serves us all alike. It tells us at once that impossibilities are out of the question. Parallels between nature and grace run very closely. A spiritual life means the sweet and willing subjection of man's spirit to the spirit of God, by the inner life of mutual love between the soul and God, formed as a habit disposed to its acts. But man has a body of flesh about him, the allurements of the world pressing around him, evil spirits in league against him, and all this in conjunction with his own unreformed and active human spirit. Considering, too, the multiplied repetition of these workings formed into habits, that become the spring of constant action, breeding many "perverse habitudes," and we see at once what abounding impediments to spiritual life and progress are likely to be found seated and settled in the soul. The all-wise providence of God acts by law, as in nature, so in grace. And in the grant of God's best and perfect gifts the law is to have impediments removed before the grace is given. Divine faith is a gift. And we may wonder sometimes why some obtain it and others not. The explanation is simple. While earnest souls are determined to give all for the pearl of great price, following up their first, second, and succeeding lights till coming to perfect day, others seem not to wish to be persuaded-the costs are great, the wrench tremendous, the sacrifices vast. Alas! they have the light to see, but not the courage to do. The intellect and will are thus at variance; and faith is of the will as well as of the mind. Thus the attachments of the heart hold back the spirit from following the divine light. Here are the impediments to faith. No man cometh to Our Lord except the Father draw him. But the soul is not drawn because it is held. To be held and to be drawn are incompatibilities. A soul is drawn by love; and here it loves the things that hold it-they draw it and keep it strongly tied. The soul can not be drawn on and held back together. Here we see impediments to the gift of faith.