My soul was, as I have said, in an entire self-surrender, and very great contentment in the midst of these violent tempests. She could do nothing but continue in her former indifference, desiring nothing even of God, whether grace or disgrace, sweetness or cross. Formerly she desired the cross with such eagerness as to be quite languishing; then she could neither desire nor choose, but received all the crosses in a uniform spirit, accepting them all with indifference from the hand of Love, whether of one description or another, severe or light: all was welcome. Those persons came and told me a hundred absurdities against Father La Combe, thinking by this to induce me no longer to follow his advice. The more they told me things to his disadvantage, the more our Lord gave me esteem for him in the depth of my heart. I said to them, “Possibly I shall never see him again, but I am quite ready to do him justice. It is not he who prevents my binding myself, but it is because this is not my vocation.” They asked me who knew it better than the Bishop; and they told me I was under deception, that my state was of no account. I was indifferent to that. I could neither be assured nor uncertain. I surrendered myself as one who had nothing to think or wish, having made over to God the care of willing and executing what he wills, and in the manner which he wills.
A soul in this state has no sweetness nor spiritual relish. It would be unseasonable. She remains such as she is in her nothingness as to herself, and this is her place; and in the all as to God, without reference to, or reflection on, herself. She knows not if she has virtues, gifts, and graces in him who is the author of all that; she does not think of it, and can will nothing, and everything that concerns her is, as it were, foreign. She has not even the desire of procuring the glory of God, leaving to God the care of procuring it for himself, and she is in regard to it as pleases him. In this state God sometimes sets her to pray for some soul; but this is done without choice or premeditation, in peace, without desire for success. What does this soul, then? one will ask.
She lets herself be led by providences and by creatures without resistance. Her outside life is quite common, and as for within, she sees nothing there; she has no assurance, either internal or external, and yet she never was more assured. The more hopeless everything, the more is her central depth tranquil, in spite of the ravage of the senses and of creatures, which for some time after the new life makes some slight cloud and partition, as I have said. I should remark that the reason why there occurs a partition is because the soul is only immediately united, not yet transformed; for as soon as she is mingled and entirely passed into her original Being, there is no longer a partition. If she committed sins, she should be rejected and cast out, so to speak. No longer, then, does she find those partitions, however subtle and delicate—I mean, reflections, light and superficial assertions of the selfhood, the actual faults of a previous state, which the soul then clearly enough perceived to be partitions; as well as the impurity which came from human action, a hasty word, natural action or eagerness, which caused a mist that she could neither prevent nor remedy, nor even wish to, having so often found that her own efforts had not only been useless, but also injurious, and that they defiled her the more owing to the state of self-annihilation in which she was.
At the commencement of the way of faith the soul profits from her defects, being by them humiliated through a reflection, simple, peaceful, tranquil, loving the abjectness which she reaps from them. The more she advances the more this simple action, without action, becomes simplified. At last there is no longer a question of this; the soul remains motionless and unshaken, bearing without movement the trouble her fault causes her, without any action whatsoever. It is what God requires from the soul from the time she is completely passive; and this is the conduct he has observed with me from the early years, long before the state of death. But, however faithful the soul to perform no sensible action to get rid of her trouble, there was yet an almost imperceptible action which the soul then did not know, and which she has become acquainted with only because she afterwards has found herself in a state exempt from this simple—nay, very simple action. It is impossible to understand me without experience. This stage is very difficult, and the soul only after many infidelities is strong in this procedure without procedure: for previously, as the fault is real, and the soul feels her impurity, she feels at the same time a secret instinct to rid herself of it; but in this degree which I am now treating, besides that she would find no remedy in anything coming from herself, it is owing to the love of her own excellence that she is led to exert herself. At the degree of which I speak, it is necessary that all purification come from God; one must wait in repose without perceived repose sometimes, for the Sun of Righteousness to dissipate these mists. Eventually this conduct becomes so natural that the soul has not even a desire to do anything. She leaves herself a prey to the interior burnings with an unshaken firmness; and though she should see all hell armed, she would not change the course of guidance. It is then she says with reason, as the royal prophet, “Though I should see an army ranged in battle I would not fear, and their force would redouble my courage.” She may, indeed, have a little fear in the senses, but she remains fixed and firm as a rock, preferring in her perfect abandonment to be the plaything of demons rather than secure herself by a sigh.
In this state the soul commits no voluntary fault: that is my belief; for it is not likely that, having no will for anything whatsoever, great or small, pleasant or bitter—for honour, wealth, life, perfection, salvation, eternity—she should have a will to offend God; therefore it is not so. All her imperfections are in nature, not in herself; therefore it is on the surface, and that is lost gradually. It is true our nature is so deceitful that it insinuates itself everywhere, and the soul is not incapable of sin; but her greatest faults are her reflections, which are here very injurious, as she then wishes to regard herself under pretext even of telling her state. For this reason one should be in no trouble at all to tell one’s state, or to take any count of it, if God does not put into the mind what he wills one to say of it. And when the director knows the state of the soul, he does not require it; if he required it, or actual light on the subject were given him, one should do it without self-regard or reflection. The selfhood’s look is like that of the Basilisk; it kills.
The same firmness which keeps her from stirring under the troubles of her defects, the soul should preserve under temptations. The Devil greatly fears to approach such souls, and he leaves them at once, no longer daring to attack them. He attacks only those who yield, or who fear him. Souls conducted by faith are not ordinarily tried by the demons; that is for souls conducted by illumination. For it is necessary to know that the trials are always suited to the state of the soul.Those who are conducted by illumination, by extraordinary gifts, ecstasies, etc., have also extraordinary trials which are effected by the intervention of demons; for, as everything with them is in the line of assurance, the trial even is an assurance. But it is not the same with the souls of simple faith: as they are conducted by nakedness, self-annihilation, and by what is commonplace, their trial is also quite commonplace; but that is far more terrible, and destroys the selfhood more. That which causes its death for them is nothing extraordinary, it is only the disturbance of their own temperament; they are troubles they regard as veritable faults, which give them no assurance unless it be that of their total self-annihilation. These two states are found in St. Paul; he says in one place, “An angel of Satan was given to him to buffet him, that he should not be exalted above measure.” Here is the trial suitable to the illumination. But as this great doctor and master of spiritual life had to experience all states, he does not remain there; he has another trial which he calls “a thorn of the flesh,” to show that he has experience of all. “He prayed,” he says, “three times,” and it was said to him, “My grace is enough, for virtue is perfected in weakness.” All this though to humiliate him, yet acted in the way of assurance. However, because these revelations were assured, he has experienced another state which he calls “the body of sin;” and this expression is admirable, for as after death the body decays only from its own corruption, so in this state it seems that the soul experiences the exhalations from the body of sin, that is, from a body corrupted by sin. “Miserable!” says he, “who shall deliver me from the body of death?”—for I feel that it is a body which carries in itself death, and to which I would be unable to give life; and then, convinced of his inability to deliver himself from so great an ill, having deplored his wretchedness, which then is without assurance and with knowledge of his powerlessness—“Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (from this body stinking and corrupt, which I carry, though I am living)—he answers himself: “It will be the grace of God by our Lord Jesus Christ.” And how do you understand that, Paul? It is that Jesus Christ, taking in me the place of my sinful and carnal man, stripping me of that old man, of that body corrupted by sin, will clothe me anew, because he has vanquished death in me, when he said, “O death, I will be thy death; hell, I will be thy destruction.” When Jesus Christ shall have conquered in me death by his life, and in this wonderful duel life shall have surmounted my death, there will be no longer any sting in death, since there will no longer be any sin; and it is then that grace shall deliver me from this body of sin by Jesus Christ my Saviour.
I say, then, that the same firmness which one should have in regard to defects and temptations, so as not to give an opening to the Devil, one should have in regard to gifts and graces. In this state everything is so inward that nothing is perceived. But if anything falls upon the senses the soul is steadfast in letting the grace come and go, making no movement, however simple, either to relish or to recognize it. She leaves everything as though it was passing in another, without taking any part in it. At the commencement, and for a considerable time, the soul sees that nature wishes to take its part, and then her fidelity consists in restraining it, without permitting it the least expansion; but after the habit of restraining it has enabled her to remain immovable, and as if it were a thing that did not affect her, she no longer regards anything, she no longer appropriates to herself anything, and she lets all flow by into God in purity, as it has come forth from him. Until the soul be in this state, she always in some degree defiles by her intermixture the operation of God, like those streams which contract corruption from the places through which they flow; but as soon as the same streams flow in a pure place, they then continue in the purity of their source. This much destroys nature, and drives it out from its abode, leaving it no refuge; but, short of experience, and unless God made known this conduct to the soul, she cannot understand it, or picture it in imagination, owing to its great simplicity. The mind is empty, is no longer traversed by thoughts; nothing occupies a certain void which is no longer painful, and the soul discovers in herself an immense capacity, which nothing can either limit or obstruct. External employments are no longer a trouble, and the soul is in a state of stability, which cannot be expressed, and which will be little understood. Oh, if souls had courage enough to allow themselves to be annihilated without pitying themselves, without looking to anything, supporting themselves on anything, what progress would they not make? But no one is willing to leave land, at most one advances some paces; but as soon as the sea is disturbed one fears, casts anchor, and often gives up the voyage. The love of the selfhood causes all these disorders. It is further of consequence here not to look to one’s state, following the counsel of the Bridegroom to the bride: “Turn your eyes from me, for they make me flyaway;” not only to avoid losing courage, but also because of the self-love, which is so rooted that the soul often discovers its life and the empire it would assume by a certain complaisance and preference for her state. Often, also, the idea one conceives of the grandeur of one’s state makes one wish the same perfection in others. One conceives too low an idea of others; one finds it a trouble to converse with unspiritual people. It is not the same with the soul thoroughly abandoned and dead; she would rather converse with devils by the order of providence than converse with angels of her own choice.
For this reason she knows not what to choose, neither state nor condition, however perfect they may be. She is content with everything she has; she keeps herself at peace wherever she is placed, high or low, in one country or in another; all that she has is all that is needed for her to be fully content; she could not be in trouble at the absence, nor rejoiced at the presence, of persons the most devoted to God, and who might seem most necessary to her, and in whom she has entire confidence; because she is entirely satisfied, and she has all that is needed, though everything be wanting to her. It is this which makes her not seek to see people or to speak, but receive the providences both for the one and the other, without which there is always something of the human, however fair the pretext with which we cover ourselves. The soul feels very well that all which is done by choice and election, and not by providence, instead of aiding, hurts her, or at least brings her little fruit.
But what is it which makes this soul so perfectly content? She knows not. She is content without knowing the subject of her contentment, and without wishing to know it, but content in a way that is vast, immense, independent of external events; more content in the humiliations of her own neediness and the rejection of all creatures in the order of providence, than upon the throne, by her own choice. If a sigh were needed to set her free from the most fearful place she would not give it.
O you alone who conduct these souls, and who can teach these ways, so self-annihilating, and so contrary to the ordinary spirit of devotion, full of itself and its own discoveries, conduct thus souls without number, that you may be loved purely! These are the souls which alone love you as you wish to be loved. All other love, however great and ardent it may appear, is not PURE LOVE, but a love mingled with something of the selfhood. These souls can no longer of themselves practise austerities, nor desire them; but they perform with indifference what they are directed to practise. They have nothing extraordinary on the outside, and their life is most common; they do not think of humiliating themselves, letting themselves be such as they are, for the state of annihilation in which they are is below all humility. Such souls should not be judged by those who are still in the state of perfecting themselves through their exertions, for they would often take for pride the simplicity in which these persons, free from everything of the selfhood, speak of everything, and of themselves. But let them know it is not so: that these souls are the delight of God, who says, “His delight is to be with the children of men;” that is to say, these souls quite childlike and innocent. They are very far from pride, being unable to attribute to themselves aught but nothingness and sin, and they are so one with God that they see only him, and all things in him. They would publish the graces of God with the same readiness as they would tell their own paltrinesses; they tell both indifferently, according as God allows them, and as may be useful for the good of souls.
Those reserves, so good and so holy at a time when our Lord consecrates by a profound silence all his graces and the troubles (as one may see he did in my case), would be an act of selfhood for the soul of which I am speaking, for she is above herself. While the soul is still in the solitude of herself it is necessary she should be content with silence and repose; but then it is necessary for her to pass beyond that, and so strongly raise herself above herself that at last she loses herself in God, and therewith all things; and it is then she no longer knows her virtues as virtues, but she has them all in God as from God, without reference or relation to herself. It is for this reason those who are still in themselves ought not to measure the liberty of these souls, nor compare it with their own restricted action, though the latter be very virtuous and suitable to them; but they should understand that what makes the perfection of their state would be imperfect for the souls of which I am speaking.
That which makes the perfection of one state always constitutes the imperfection and commencement of the following state. It is here as in the degrees of the sciences; he who finishes a class and is perfect in it, is imperfect in that which succeeds. He must give up the way of acting which made him perfect in his class, to enter into another quite different. St. Paul so well says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I acted as a child.” And that was the perfection of the state of childhood, which has a hundred charms; but when one is become a mature man things change their aspect. St. Paul speaks of it again in another way, when speaking of the law (which may also be applied to laws of perfection, that one imposes on himself); he says: “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” That law, then, and that perfection which one imposes on himself, and which our Lord even makes us practise, is very necessary to get to Jesus Christ, but when Jesus Christ is become our life, the schoolmaster who has been so useful to us becomes useless; and if we desired still to follow him, we should not sufficiently give ourselves up to be led by Jesus Christ, and we should never enter into the perfect liberty of the children of God, which is born from the Spirit of God.
When we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of God, he makes us enter into the liberty of his children adopted in Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ, for “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty,” because “he gives not his Spirit to us by measure;” for those whom he has predestinated to be his free children, them he has called, and those whom he has called he has justified. It is, then, he who operates in them that righteousness which is conformable to their call. But to what has he destined those cherished souls? “To be conformed to the image of his Son.” Oh, it is here is the great secret of that call and that justification, and the reason why so few souls arrive at that state. It is because there one is predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son of God. But some one will say, Are not all Christians called to be conformed to the image of the Son of God? Yes, everyone is called to be conformed to it in something, for if a Christian did not bear on him the image of Jesus Christ he would not be saved, since he is saved only by this character. But the souls of which I speak are destined to bear Jesus Christ himself, and to be conformed to him in all, and the more perfect their conformity, the more perfect are they. It will be seen in the sequel of what I have to write, how it has pleased our Lord to make my soul conformed to himself.
It is in these souls that God engenders his Word. He makes them bear the inclinations of that same Word, without the soul discovering in herself those same inclinations during a very long time. But when light is given either for speaking or for writing, the soul knows very well that as Jesus Christ has led a common, and apparently natural life, without anything extraordinary, except at the close of his life, such a soul also has nothing extraordinary during a very long time. The guidance of providence blindly followed constitutes all her way and her life, becoming all to all, her heart daily becoming more vast to bear her neighbour, however faulty he may be: and she sees clearly that when she prefers the virtuous to the faulty, she commits a fault by preferring a certain sympathy to the order of God. Until one has arrived at this, one is little suited for helping one’s neighbour: it is only then one commences to aid him effectively. This is difficult, and one has trouble to accept it at first, because one regards this mode of acting as loss of time, defect, amusement; but the soul in which Jesus Christ lives, and of which he is the way, the light, the truth, and the life, sees these things in a different manner. She no longer finds any creature antipathetic or difficult to bear; she bears them through the heart of Jesus Christ.
It is here commences the Apostolic life. But is every one called to this state? Very few, as far as I can understand, and even of the few who are called to it, few walk in it in true purity. The souls in passive illumination and extraordinary gifts, though holy and quite seraphic, do not enter into this way. There is a way of illumination—a holy life, where the creature appears quite admirable. As this life is more apparent, it is also the more esteemed by those who have not the purest lights. These persons have striking things in their life; they have a fidelity and a courage which astonish, and it is this which wonderfully adorns the life of the saints. But the souls which walk in this other path are little known. God despoils them, weakens them, strips them naked bit by bit, so that, depriving them of every support and every hope, they are obliged to lose themselves in him. They have nothing great which is apparent, hence it comes that the greater their interior is, the less they can speak of it, because (as one may remark from what has been said) for a very long time they can see there only want and poverty; afterwards they no longer see themselves. The greatest saints, the most interior are those of whom people have spoken least. As to the Holy Virgin, it is true there was nothing more to be said, after saying she was the Mother of God, her maternity including all the possible perfection of a pure creature; but look at St. Joseph, the Magdalen, St. Scholastica, and so many others—what is said of them? Nothing at all. St. Joseph has passed a part of his life in carpentry. What an employment for the husband of the mother of a God! Jesus Christ just the same. Oh, if I could express what I conceive of this state! but I can only stammer. I have wandered from my narrative; but I am not my own mistress.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 