The Magi Have Only to Follow Their Star ( - Caussade)

How can we resist the Almighty, whose ways are inscrutable? God champions their cause and they have no need to beware of intrigues, or to meet suspicion with suspicion by watching every move against them. Their beloved relieves his children of all this anxiety. And, untroubled and safe, they leave all to him. Divine action delivers and exempts souls from all that sordid mistrust so necessary in human affairs. It may be all right for a Herod or the Pharisees, but the Magi have only to follow their star, and the infant Jesus only to lie in his mother's arms, and their enemies will do them more good than harm. The more the enemy tries to mislead and thwart souls, the more bold and unperturbed they will be. They will not stoop to sue with him or repel his attack or placate his envy and suspicion. They need persecution. This was how Jesus Christ lived in Judea, and still lives in the same way in the pure of heart. He is noble, loving, free, serene, and fearless, depending on no
man, seeing all creatures under God's hand eager to serve him, some by their evil passions, others by their saintly actions, these by their willfulness, those by their obedience and submission. Divine action arranges it all miraculously, not too much or too little but just the amount of good and evil needed. God provides each moment with its appropriate purpose, and the pure of heart, uplifted by faith, find everything good and wish for neither more nor less than what they have. They continually bless that divine hand which pours its living water over them; they treat their friends and enemies alike with the same gentleness, since it was Jesus' way to treat everyone as divine. They are free agents and yet, at the same time, dependent on each other. What is ordained by divine action is essential, and souls must accept it accordingly and respond to it in humble obedience, being all things to all men, as St Paul told us and Jesus Christ practised even more perfectly. Only grace can impart this spiritual quality which distinguishes and is so marvellously adapted to each one of us. This cannot be learnt through books. It is the true voice of prophecy, an inner revelation, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In order to understand it, it is necessary to be in a state of total self-surrender, completely detached from every purpose and every interest, however holy, to have no other interest in the world than passively to submit to divine action in order to devote oneself to the duty of one's state, allowing the Holy Spirit to act in us regardless of what it is doing, happy, even, to remain in ignorance. What happens in this world is often solely for the benefit of souls committed to the will of God.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade