Waiting

Theme: Entering into Jesus' suffering and death
Grace: To trust
Reading: Luke 23:44-56

Let a person humbly await God's guidance, abandoning himself in all peacefulness and in total detachment in the divine influence, whenever and however it may come to him. This will be all that God requires of him - that he stand before him meekly and as a poor sinner, and await in entire self denial the working of divine grace in his soul. A man who thus passively yields himself up to God's hidden operations of grace, him will the power of the Almighty Father visit, and the light of the only begotten son will shine within him, and the infinite love of the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, will be poured out upon him, and the heavens will rain down on him a dew of divine sweetness, and the earth and all creatures will minister to his happiness...

The more God leaves a person in natural desolation spirit, the stronger does he establish him in supernatural grace. The more a person is tried by natural feelings of dread and of anguish - as long as these are not quite intolerable - the more do these very sufferings become an element of security in his spiritual life by nourishing holy humility. They hold him back from ruin' they are like a stout wall built up between him and the danger of losing all the graces that have been granted him. These trials hinder him from rashness and over-security. May God's eternal love, overflowing and ever faithful, thus be given to us. -- Fr. John Tauler, O.P. (1361) (in Magnificat, Holy Week edition p. 168-9)