As my life has always been consecrated to the cross, no sooner had I left prison, and my mind began to breathe again, after so many trials, than the body was overwhelmed with all sorts of infirmities, and I have had almost continual illnesses, which brought me to death’s door.
In these latter times I am able to say little or nothing of my dispositions, because my state has become simple and invariable. The root of that state is a profound annihilation, so that I find, nothing in me that can be named. All that I know is, that God is infinitely holy, just, good, happy: that he includes in himself all good, and I, all wretchedness. I see nothing lower than me, nor anything more unworthy than me. I recognize that God has given me graces capable of saving a world, and that perhaps I have paid all with ingratitude. I say, “perhaps,” because nothing subsists in me, good or ill. The good is in God. I have for my share only the nothing. What can I say of a state always the same, without forethought or variation; for the dryness, if I have it, is the same to me as a state the most satisfying. All is lost in the immensity, and I can neither will nor think. It is like a little drop of water sunk in the sea; not only is it surrounded by it, but absorbed. In that divine immensity the soul no longer sees herself, but in God she discovers the objects, without discerning them, otherwise than by the taste of the heart. All is darkness and obscurity as regards her; all is light on the part of God, who does not allow her to be ignorant of anything; while she knows not what she knows, nor how she knows it. There is there neither clamour, nor pain, nor trouble, nor pleasure, nor uncertainty; but a perfect peace: not in herself, but in God; no interest for herself, no recollection of or occupation with herself. This is what God is in that creature: as to her, abjectness, weakness, poverty, without her thinking either of her abjectness or her dignity. If one believes any good in me, he is mistaken, and does wrong to God. All good is in him, and for him. If I could have a satisfaction, it is from this, that HE IS WHAT HE IS, and that HE WILL BE IT ALWAYS. If he saves me, it will be gratuitously; for I have neither merit nor dignity.
I am astonished that any confidence can be felt in this “nothing.” I have said it; yet I answer what is asked me without troubling myself whether I answer well or ill. If I say ill, I am not at all surprised; if I say well, I do not think of attributing it to myself. I go without going, without forethought, without knowing where I go. I wish neither to go, nor to stop myself. The will and instincts have disappeared; poverty and nakedness is my portion. I have neither confidence nor distrust, nor in short anything, anything, anything. If obliged to think in myself, I should probably mislead everybody, and I know neither how I mislead them, nor what I do to mislead them. There are times I would, at the peril of a thousand lives, that God should be known and loved. I love the Church. All that wounds her, wounds me. I fear everything which is contrary to her; but I cannot give a name to that fear. It is like an infant at the breast, who, without distinguishing monsters, turns away from them. I do not seek anything; but there are given me at the instant expressions and words very forcible. If I wished to have them they would escape me, and if I wished to recall them, the same. When I have anything to say and I am interrupted, everything is lost. I am then like a child, from whom an apple is taken away without his perceiving it. He seeks it, and no longer finds it. I am vexed for a moment at its being taken from me; but I immediately forget it. God keeps me in an extreme simplicity, uprightness of heart, and largeness; so that I do not perceive these things except in the occasions: for without an occasion stirring it I do not see anything. If one said anything to my advantage, I should be surprised, not finding anything in myself. If one blames me the only thing I know is, I am the same abjectness, but I do not see what they blame there. I believe it without seeing it, and everything disappears. If I am made to reflect upon myself, I do not recognize there any good. I see all good in God. I know he is the principle of all, and, without him, I am only a fool.
He gives me a free air, and makes me converse with persons, not according to my dispositions, but according to what they are, giving me even natural cleverness with those who have it; and that, with an air so free, they go away pleased. There are certain devotees whose language is for me a stammering. I do not fear the snares they spread for me. I am not on my guard for anything, and everything goes well. I am sometimes told, “Take care what you will say to So-and-so.” I forget it immediately, and I cannot take care. Sometimes I am told, “You have said such-and-such a thing: those persons may put an ill interpretation on it. You are too simple.” I believe it, but I cannot do otherwise than be simple. O carnal prudence, how opposed I find thee to the simplicity of Jesus Christ! I leave thee to thy partisans: as for me, my prudence, my wisdom, is Jesus, simple and little; and though I should be Queen by changing my conduct, I could not do it. Though my simplicity should cause me all the troubles in the world, I could not leave it.
Nothing greater than God: nothing more little than I. He is rich: I am very poor. I do not want for anything. I do not feel need of anything. Death, life, all is alike. Eternity, time: all is eternity, all is God. God is Love, and Love is God, and all in God, and for God. You would as soon extract light from darkness, as anything from this “nothing.” It is a chaos without confusion. All species are outside of the “nothing;” and the “nothing” does not admit them: thoughts only pass, nothing stops. I cannot say anything to order. What I have written, or said, is gone: I remember it no more. It is for me as if from another person. I cannot wish either justification or esteem. If God wills either one or the other, he will do what he shall please. It does not concern me. That he may glorify himself by my destruction, or by reestablishing my reputation, the one and the other is alike in the balance.
My children, I do not wish to mislead you, or not to mislead you. It is for God to enlighten you, and to give you distaste or inclination for this “nothing,” who does not leave her place. It is an empty beacon: one may in it light a torch. It is perhaps a false light, which may lead to the precipice. I know nothing of it. God knows it. It is not my business. It is for you to discern that. There is nothing but to extinguish the false light. The torch will never light itself if God does not light it. I pray God to enlighten you always to do only his will. As for me, if you should trample me underfoot, you would only do me justice. This is what I can say of a “nothing” that I would wish, if I was able to wish, should be eternally forgotten. If the “Life” was not written, it would run a great chance of never being so; and yet I would rewrite it at the least signal, without knowing why, nor what I wished to say.
Oh, my children, open your eyes to the light of truth! Holy Father, sanctify them in your truth. I have told them your truth, since I have not spoken of myself. Your Divine Word has spoken to them by my mouth. He alone is the truth. He has said to his Apostles, “I sanctify myself for them.” Say the same thing to my children. Sanctify yourself in them and for them. But how reconcile your words, O my Divine Word? You say on the one hand, “Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.” On the other, “I sanctify myself for them.” Oh, how well these two things agree! It is to be sanctified in the truth of all sanctity, to have no other sanctity but that of Jesus Christ. May he alone be holy in us and for us. He will be holy in us when we shall be sanctified in his truth by that experimental knowledge that to him alone belongs all sanctity, all justice, all strength, all greatness, all power, all glory: and to us all poverty, weakness, etc. Let us remain in our “nothing” through homage to the sanctity of God, and we shall be sanctified and instructed by the truth. Jesus Christ will be holy for us, and will be to us everything. We shall find in him all that is deficient in us. If we seek anything for ourselves out of him, if we seek anything in us as ours, however holy it may appear us, we are liars, and the truth is not in us. We seduce ourselves, and we shall never be the saints of the Lord, who, having no other sanctity but his, have renounced all usurpations, and at last their entire SELFHOOD. Holy Father, I have replaced in your hands those whom you have given me. Guard them in your truth, that falsehood may not approach them. It is to be in falsehood to attribute to one’s self the least thing. It is to be in falsehood to believe we are able to do anything: to hope anything from one’s self or for one’s self: to believe we possess anything. Make them know, O my God, that herein is the truth of which you are very jealous. All language which departs from this principle is falsity: he who approaches it, approaches the truth, but he who speaks only the ALL OF GOD and the NOTHING OF THE CREATURE is in the truth, and the truth dwells with him: because, usurpation and the selfhood being banished from him, it is of necessity the truth dwells there. My children, receive this instruction from your mother, and it will procure life for you. Receive it through her, not as from her or hers, but as from God and God’s. Amen, Jesus.
CONCLUSION.
I pray those who shall read this not to be angry against the persons who, through a zeal perhaps too bitter, have pushed things so far against a woman, and a woman so submissive; because, as Tauler says, “When God wishes to purify a soul by suffering, he would for a time cast into darkness and blindness an infinite number of holy persons, in order they might prepare that vessel of election by rash and disparaging judgments, that they would form against her in that state of ignorance. But at last, after having purified that vessel, he would sooner or later lift the bandage from their eyes, not treating with rigour a fault they would have committed through a secret leading of his admirable providence. I say, further, that God would sooner send an angel from heaven to dispose by tribulations that chosen vessel than to leave her without suffering.”
December,1709.
THE END.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON 