We may know all the theory of this work, admirably write and speak thereon, and instruct and direct souls; but if our knowledge be only theoretical, then I say that in comparison with souls which live and act by the order of God and are guided by His divine will, though ignorant of the theory of its operations or its different effects, and unable to speak thereof, we are like a sick physician compared to ordinary persons in perfect health.
The order of God, His divine will, received with simplicity by a faithful soul, effects this divine work in her unconsciously to herself, just as a remedy submissively taken restores the health of a sick man, although he have not, and need not have, any knowledge of medicine.
It is the fire which warms us, and not the philosophical knowledge of the element and its effects; so it is the order of God, His divine will, and not the curious speculation on its principles and its methods, which produces the sanctification of our souls.
If we thirst, we must drink; theoretical explanations will not quench our thirst. Curiosity for knowledge only makes us thirst still more. Therefore, if we thirst for sanctification, curious speculations only keep us farther from it. We must abandon all theories and drink in simplicity of all that the will of God sends us of work and suffering.
That which comes to us each moment by the order of God is best and holiest and most divine for us.
Reading and other Exercises only sanctify us in so far as they are the Channels of the Divine Action.
All our science consists in recognizing God’s will in regard to the present moment. All reading pursued in any other spirit than that of submission to the order of God is injurious. The will of God, the order of God, is the grace which works in the depths of our hearts by means of our readings and by all our other works. Without it our readings are but shadows, vain appearances, which, coming to us devoid of the vivifying virtue of the order of God, serve only to empty the heart by the very plenitude they cause in the mind.
The virtue of this divine will flowing into the soul of a simple, ignorant girl by means of suffering or ordinary actions, effects in the depths of her heart this mysterious work of the supernatural Being without filling her mind with any idea likely to awaken pride; while the proud man who studies spiritual books only through curiosity, and does not unite his reading to the will of God, receives into his mind the letter without the spirit, and becomes colder and more hardened than ever.