My daughter recovered her health. I must tell how this happened. She had smallpox, and the purples. They brought a doctor from Geneva, who gave her up in despair. They made Father La Combe come in to take her confession; he gave her his blessing, and at the same instant the smallpox and the purples disappeared, and the fever left her. The doctor, though a Protestant, offered to give a certificate of a miracle. But although my daughter was restored, my crosses were not lessened, owing to her bad education. The persecutions on the part of the New Catholics continued, and became even more violent, without my ceasing on that account to do them all the good I could. What caused me some pain was that the mistress of my daughter came often to converse with me. I saw so much imperfection in these conversations, although spiritual, that I could not avoid making it known to her, and as this hurt her, I was weak enough to be pained at paining her, and to continue out of mere complacency things which I saw to be very imperfect.
Father La Combe introduced order in many things regarding my daughter; but the mistress was so hurt that the friendship she had for me changed into coolness and distance. However, as she had grace, she readily got over it; but her natural character carried her away. I told her my thoughts on the defects I perceived in her because I was ordered to do so; and although at the moment God enlightened her to see the truth of what I said, and that she was afterwards still more enlightened, it all the same made her grow cool. The discussions between her and my sister became stronger and more bitter. Herein I admired the conduct of God and the cleverness he gave my daughter, who was only six and a half years of age: she found out by her little attentions the means of pleasing them both, preferring to do her little exercises twice over so as to do them first with the one, then with the other. This did not last long, for as the mistress generally neglected her, and at one time did things, another time not, she was reduced to learning merely what my sister and I taught her. It is true that the vivacity of my sister is so excessive that it is difficult without a special grace to get on with her; but it seemed to me that she conquered herself in many things. Formerly I had difficulty to put up with her ways, but in the end I loved all in God.
When I say that these differences caused me pain, it is a way of explaining myself, for I looked upon them, like the rest, as permitted by God; so that I was satisfied. Formerly my greatest pain would have been to cause suffering to any one, but then I should have been as content in the order of God to be the cross of the whole world, as to be myself crucified by it. I had, however, a certain instinct to soften matters, and I did it as much as I could. You had given me, O my God, a facility to bear the defects of my neighbour, and a great address for pleasing him, a compassion of his wretchedness which I had not previously. O God, you alone can give this boundless charity. I bore more easily the very great defects of imperfect souls than certain defects, which did not appear to be anything, in the souls which God wished to make perfect. I felt my heart enlarge in compassion for the former, and a certain firmness towards the others, so as not to tolerate them in defects which are all the more dangerous as they are the less suspected, owing to their subtility. Although it seems my own abjectness ought to impose silence on me, I could not refrain from reproving these souls for their defects; otherwise I suffered much. I have suffered not a little for the imperfections of certain souls which God made me feel, and the suffering of whose purification he imposed on me. I will soon tell something of it. The more eminent in grace the soul of which we are treating, the more closely united to me, the greater also is the weight and the suffering which I bear. I see their central depth and their defects (I speak of radical defects, for the others do not astonish me, nor even cause me any trouble)—I see them, I say, as if they were externally uncovered. This sight does not diminish the esteem I have for the person, but it makes me know what is wanting to him, and often engages me to tell him.
I have no trouble in using complacence with imperfect persons: on the contrary, without knowing why, I am led to behave so with them, and I should feel guilty if I failed in it; but with souls of grace I cannot maintain this mere human action, and I cannot endure long and frequent conversations. It is a thing which few people are capable of understanding, and which is little known. Spiritual persons say that these conversations are very useful. I think that is true at one time, not at another, and there is a time when they hurt, especially when it is by choice, our human inclination corrupting everything; so that the same things which would be useful to us when God allows us to be led into them by his providence become defective when we do them of ourselves. This appears to me so clear that it seems to me if by obedience or order of providence I passed all the day with devils, I should be less wearied thereby than by being an hour with a spiritual person from human choice or inclination; and this is so true that, however dead nature may appear when it makes choice of one person rather than another (because he pleases) to converse with unnecessarily, the soul perceives that nature has had a part in it, that she has some pain in separating from him, and that she would rather be with this person than with another—a thing which is an act of selfhood, contrary to a supreme indifference and total abandonment. When it is necessity or providence, any conformity or inclination we may have with it does no harm, for the order and will of God purify all things.
Divine providence constitutes all the rule and guidance of a soul lost in God, and as such a soul can have no eye to herself either to regard herself, or to be on her guard, she may be troubled from the fact of committing faults without being able either to foresee them, or to defend herself from them. But let her leave herself to be led by providence at every moment, and she will find that, without thinking of it, she will perform everything well, and will have all that is necessary for her; for God, to whom she has trusted herself, makes her do at each moment what he desires of her, and furnishes the suitable occasions for this. When I say that she will perform everything well, it is from God’s point of view, who loves what is of his order and his will, but not according to the idea of man, or of reason, even of that which is illuminated, for God conceals these persons from all eyes in order to keep them for himself. But whence comes it, then, that souls of this degree do not cease to commit faults? It is that they are not faithful in giving themselves up at the present moment. Often, even from wishing to be too faithful, you will see very advanced souls commit many faults, which they can neither foresee nor avoid. In truth, they cannot foresee them, and it would be a lack of fidelity for them to wish to do so; and as they are in a great forgetfulness of themselves, neither can they avoid them. What then? Is it that God deserts those souls who trust in him? By no means; God would sooner perform a miracle to hinder them from falling, if they were so self-surrendered. But they all appear to be so. It is true that they are so as to the will of being so, but they are not so as to the present moment; hence, being outside the order of God, they fall and fall again as long as they are outside this divine order, and as soon as they return to it, everything goes on very well.
And assuredly if the souls of this degree were faithful enough to allow no moment of the order of God for them to escape, they would not fall in this way. This appears to me clearer than the day. For example, a bone dislocated and out of the place where the economy of divine wisdom had placed it, does not cease to pain until it is back again in its natural order. Whence come so many troubles, so many conflicts? It is that the soul has not been willing to remain in her place, nor to content herself with what she has and what happens to her from moment to moment. It is the same in the order of grace as in that of nature. Even the Devil would suffer more out of Hell against the order of God than in Hell. Hence it comes that there is mercy even in Hell; and St. Catherine of Genoa asserts that if the soul dying in mortal sin did not find Hell, which is the proper place for her state, she would be in greater torments than those which she feels in that place, and it is this which causes her impetuosity to precipitate herself into it.
If men knew this secret they would be fully content and satisfied. But, oh, too deplorable misfortune! in place of being content with what one has, one is always wishing for what one has not. But when it pleases God to enlighten the soul on this, she commences to be in Paradise. What is it constitutes Paradise? It is the order of God, which makes all the saints infinitely content, though very unequal in glory. Whence comes it that the poor, who want everything, are so content, and that kings, who have everything in abundance, are so unhappy? It is that the man who knows not how to content himself with what he has, will never be without desires, and he who desires anything will never be content.
All souls have desires more or less strong except those which are in the divine moment. There are even great souls which only have them almost imperceptible; others who have them so great that they are the admiration of those who know them. Some languish upon the earth because they burn to go to see God; others long for suffering—are consumed with an ardour for martyrdom; others for the salvation of their neighbour. All this is very excellent; but he who contents himself with the divine moment, although exempt from all these desires is infinitely more content, and glorifies God more.
It is not that in the moment of suffering, since it is then the order of God, the desire of what one has does not accompany the thing itself. It is written of Jesus Christ, when he drove out from the temple those who profaned it, “The zeal of your house has devoured me,” and it was in that moment the order of God that those words should have their effect; for besides then, how many times had not Jesus Christ been at the temple without such desires? Does he not say himself on different occasions that his hour was not yet come? Many saints, like St. Andrew, declare their desire for the Cross when they possess it.
The saints in heaven always desire God and always possess him. It is not properly a desire of these things, it is an appetite, which the present good gives birth to, and which, far from causing pain and inquietude, augments the pleasure of the enjoyment. This desire is looked upon as a flight, or a step forward of the Spirit. The desire of the angels is an advancement in God, whence it comes that they enjoy continually and ceaselessly advance in the enjoyment, discovering new beauties in God, which ravish them, without eternity being able ever to exhaust those treasures, ever new, of that beauty, ever ancient and ever new. They will still know what from the first they knew, and every instant there will be novelties which will charm, and will make them enter into new enjoyments. This is what the desires of the angels mean.
St. Catherine of Genoa asserts that a soul in purgatory could not desire her deliverance, for this would be an imperfection savouring of selfhood, of which these souls are not capable. They remain immersed in the divine order without being capable of reflecting on themselves. She, doubtless, means to speak of that desire which carries with it a reflection tainted by the selfhood, that regards the advantage of its own soul; this desire, being outside the divine order and disposition for those souls, would trouble their tranquillity, and place them in an actual imperfection of which they are absolutely incapable. But as to the radical instinct, which they have to return to their Centre, and which is in their nature, it is so strong, yet peaceful, that it would be capable of annihilating those souls if they were not sustained by a divine virtue. As to desires, taken as products of their will, they have none; but the instinct of union with their Origin is so strong that it is this which constitutes their true torment, hindered as they are from following it by their imperfections. For the inclination of the soul to her Centre is so strong that all the impetuosities, which we see in other inanimate creatures to return to theirs, are not a shadow of the tendency the soul has to her Goal. The reason is to be found in the eminence of the Centre, which has in itself a quality the more attracting as it is more excellent.
The excellence of God being infinite, it is easy to judge of the force of his attraction. The nobleness of the soul which tends only to her elevation, causes her to have a very powerful momentum towards her Centre, and from this infinite attraction of God, as well as from the tendency of the soul to follow that central attraction, one may judge of the pain of souls in purgatory, who are arrested more or less, according as the obstacles, which hinder them from losing themselves in God, are more or less strong.
This is also the pain of damnation to the souls who are in Hell—a pain the greater as it is accompanied with despair of ever being able to be united to their Centre, the end of their creation; for eternally they will be attracted by God with an extreme violence, and repulsed by him with greater force. It is the severest torment of the damned—a torment inconceivable.
The cause why we do not feel in this life this heavy weight that retards and that powerful attraction for our Centre, is to be found in the body, which, while amusing itself with created objects, causes a diversion, and withdraws the attention of the soul, so that she does not feel that attracting virtue of the Centre, except by an inquietude that hinders her finding any repose on earth. A soul truly lost in God would suffer all possible pains in peace, and without any reflection on herself, as well because she would be sunk: in the order and the will of God, as because, being in the central repose, she could not suffer inquietude; which, however, does not prevent suffering in itself and very strong, just as perfect self-surrender does not hinder the suffering of souls in purgatory. I believe it is the same in purification in the other life as in suffering in this. There the souls let themselves be purified by God in perfect passivity, allowing the flames to do what God commands without self-regard or reflection. Here the souls lost in God allow themselves to be purified by God without putting a hand to it, allowing themselves to be devoured by the eternal fire their faults cause them. And like as a soul in purgatory, when she has no longer anything to purify, suffers no longer in the flames, so when God by his divine activity has purified the defects of the creature, the pain ceases, and the soul feels that she is restored to her place; and as in purgatory souls suffer more or less, according as they have more or less to purify, so in this state the soul after her fall suffers more or less, according to the quality of the fault. I have terribly digressed.
(End of year 1682.)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 