Salesian Literature

Chapter 18:  Receiving God’s inspirations

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By inspirations we understand all the interior attractions, movements, consciousness of wrong done ad regrets for wrong doing, enlightenments and insights.  These God produces in us.  By his fatherly love and care, he anticipates our heart’s desire with his blessings (Ps. 21:3).  He does this to awaken in us, to stir us up, to urge us and to attract us to holy virtues, to heavenly love, to good resolutions, in short, to all that moves us forward to our everlasting good.  This is what the Beloved means by knocking at the door (Songs 5:2) and speaking to the heart of his Spouse (Hosea 2:14), waking here when she sleeps (Songs 5:2), calling for her and asking for her when she is absent (Songs 2:10,13), inviting her to eat his honey, and to gather apples and flowers in his garden (songs 5:1; 6:2), as well as to sing and let her sweet voice sound in his ears (Songs 2:14).

 

In order that the arrangement of a marriage be complete, three acts are needed with regard to the lady whom a man wishes to marry.  First, the person is proposed to her.  Second, she is pleased with the proposal.  Third, she gives her consent.  God acts in the same way when he wants to do some work of great charity in us, through us and with us.  First, he proposes it to us by his inspiration.  Second, we are pleased with it.  Third, we consent to it.

 

There are three steps leading down to sin: the temptation, the delight, the consent[1].  So there are three steps leading up to virtue: the inspiration which is the opposite of temptation; the delight in the inspiration which is the opposite of the delight in the temptation; the consent to the inspiration which is the opposite of the consent to the temptation.

 

An inspiration might last all our life.  But this would not make us in any way pleasing to God, if we took no pleasure in it.  On the contrary, his Divine Majesty would be offended with us as he was with the Israelites.  He had been with them, as he says, for forty years (Ps. 95:10), urging them to be converted.  But they would not listen to him at all.  So he swore against them in his anger that they should not enter his rest (Ps. 95:11).  In fact, a man, who had courted a lady for a long time, would be greatly offended if, after that, she refused to show any interest in the marriage he desired.

 

Taking pleasure in inspirations puts us firmly on the way to giving glory to God.  By it we begin already to please his Divine Majesty.  Though the delight we take is not yet a full consent, it prepares us for it to some extent.  It is a good sign and something very useful to take pleasure in listening to the word of God which is like an exterior inspiration.  So also, it is a good thing and pleasing to God to take delight in interior inspirations.  It is regarding this pleasure the sacred Spouse speaks when she says: My heart melted with joy when my Beloved spoke (Songs 5:6).  Similarly, a man is already quite satisfied with the lady he is courting, and feels he is favoured, when he sees that she is pleased with his attentions.

 

But finally it is the consent that completes an act of virtue.  We receive the inspiration and take pleasure in it and yet after that we refuse our consent to God.  We are thus extremely ungrateful and offend very much his divine Majesty.  In doing this we show greater contempt.  This is what happened to the Spouse.  Even though the loving voice of her Beloved touched her heart with a holy joy, yet she did not open the door to him.  She used a frivolous pretext to excuse herself.  At this the Beloved was rightly annoyed;  he left her and went away.  The same is the case with a man who has been courting a lady for a long time and has been favourably received by her.  But in the end he is rejected and despised.  He has more reason to be displeased than if his proposal had not been welcomed and encouraged.

 

Be determined, Philothea, to accept whole-heartedly all the inspirations that God may be pleased to send you.  When thy come, welcome them as ambassadors of the heavenly King who wants to enter into a marriage alliance with you.  Listen quietly to these proposals.  Think of the love which inspires them and cherish the holy inspirations.  Accept them with a consent that is total, loving and unchanging.  If you do this, God who cannot be under any obligation to you will hold himself bound by your love.

 

However, before giving your consent to inspirations concerning matters that are important or extraordinary, always get the advice of your spiritual guide so that you may not be deceived.  Let him examine whether the inspiration is true or false.  All the more so because the enemy, seeing a person who is prompt to consent to inspirations, very often sends false inspirations in order to deceive.  But he can never do this to someone who humbly obeys the spiritual director[2].

 

Once you have given your consent to an inspiration, you must take great care to put it into practice and obtain its results; this is the height of true virtue.  In fact, to give consent to an inspiration in your heart, without putting it into practice, is to plant a vine without desiring it to bear fruit.

 

What is extraordinarily helpful with regard to this is to practise well the Morning Exercise and the Exercise of the Awareness of God’s Presence which I have explained earlier (Part 2, Chapter 10 and Ch.12).  In this way, we prepare ourselves to do what is good by a preparation that is not only general but concerns specific matters.

 

 

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[1]  Explained in greater detail in Part 4, Chapter 3.

[2]  Read also the last paragraph of Chapter 37, Part 3.

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