Do Not Be Despondent When Interior Peace Departs or Is Broken

It often happens to those walking in the way of God that the holy peace, sweet interior solitude, and dear freedom depart and are broken within them; and sometimes from the movements of the heart such dust arises within that the path to be followed cannot be seen for it. When something similar happens to you, know that God permits this for your good. This is precisely that warfare for which God’s holy ones were crowned with bright crowns.

Stand firm, then, remembering this in the trial that has come upon you. And at such a time, as in every other disturbance, look to the Lord and say to Him from your heart: “Lord, my God! Look upon Your servant, and let Your will be done in me. I know and confess that the truth of Your words is firm and Your promises are not false. And trusting in them, I stand unshaken in Your way.” Blessed is the soul that surrenders itself to the Lord in this way at every moment it experiences disturbance and heaviness! And if, despite all this, the battle persists stubbornly and you cannot so quickly as you would wish align and blend your will with the will of God, do not grieve or be despondent, but continue to surrender yourself to God and bow graciously before His dispositions—and by this you will conquer. Consider what battle the Lord Christ endured in the garden of Gethsemane, when His humanity, at first recoiling from the cup, cried out: ”Father… if it is possible… let this cup pass from Me”; and then, returning to Himself and placing His soul in God’s hands with a full and free will, in deepest humility declared: ”nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).

When you are in difficulty, take no step until you have first raised your eyes to Christ the Lord crucified on the cross. There you will see written in large letters how you too should conduct yourself in the affliction that has come upon you. Copy it from there onto yourself—not with letters but with your actions—namely: when you feel the onset of self-loving self-pity, do not yield to it and in faint-heartedness do not come down from the cross, but have recourse to prayer and endure with humility, striving to overcome your own will and to desire with a firm desire that God’s will be done in you. If you depart from prayer with such a fruit, rejoice and triumph. If you do not attain this, your soul will remain fasting, having not tasted its proper food.

Strive that nothing dwell in your soul even for the briefest time, except God alone. Be troubled by nothing and grieved by nothing. Do not turn your eyes to the malice of others and to their bad examples; but be like a small child who, by reason of its innocence, neither notices nor is harmed by them.