Some think that they are not making any progress in the service of God
unless they feel sensible devotion and interior joy continually, forgetting
that the road to heaven is not carpeted with rose leaves but rather
bristling with thorns. Does not the divine oracle tell us that through much
tribulation we must enter the Kingdom of Heaven? And that it is only taken
by those who do violence to themselves? Our Blessed Father writes thus to a
soul that was making the above mistake:
"Live wholly for God, and for the sake of the love which He has borne to
you, do you bear with yourself in all your miseries. In fact, the being a
good servant of God does not mean the being always spiritually consoled,
the always feeling sweet and calm, the never feeling aversion or repugnance
to what is good. If this were so, neither St. Paul, nor St. Angela, nor St.
Catherine of Siena, could have served God well. To be a servant of God is
to be charitable towards our neighbour, to have, in the superior part of
our soul, an unswerving resolution to follow the will of God, joined to
the deepest humility and a simple confidence in Him; however many times we
fall, always to rise up again; in fine, to be patient with ourselves in our
miseries, and with others in their imperfections."
Another error into which good people fall is that of always wanting to find
out whether or not they are in a state of grace. If you tranquillize them
on this point, then they begin to torment themselves as to the exact amount
of progress they have made, and are actually making, in this happy state of
grace, as though their progress were in any way their own work. They quite
forget that though one may plant and another water, it is God who gives the
increase.
In order to cure this spiritual malady, which borders very closely upon
presumption, he gives in another of his letters the following wise counsel:
"Remember that all that is past is nothing, and that every day we should
say with David: Now only am I beginning to love my God truly. Do much for
God, and do nothing without love, let this be your aim, eat and drink for
this."