How to Draw Closer to God
From St. Claude de la Colombiere (d.1682)
There is no one who does not experience a hundred small annoyances every day, caused by either our own carelessness or inattention, or by the inconsideration or spite of other people, or by pure accident. Our whole lives are made up of incidents of this kind, occurring ceaselessly from one minute to another, and producing a host of involuntary feelings of dislike and aversion, envy, fear and impatience to trouble the serenity of our minds.
– We let an incautious word slip out and wish we had not said it;
– someone says something we find offensive;
– we have to wait a long time to be served when we are in a hurry;
– we are irritated by a child’s boisterousness;
– a boring acquaintance button holes us in the street;
– a passer-by splashes us with mud;
– the weather spoils our outing;
– our work is not going as well as we would wish;
– a tool breaks at a critical moment;
– we get our clothes torn or stained.
These are not occasions for practicing heroic virtue but they can be a means of acquiring it if we wish. If we were careful to offer all these petty annoyances to God and accept thema s being ordered by His providence, we would soon be in a position to support the greatest misfortunes that can happen to us, besides at the same time insensibly drawing close to intimate union with God.
NOTE: St. Claude was a French Jesuit priest and the spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, visio. SOURCE: Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence by Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure, SJ (Tan Books, 1983)
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