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HOLY INDIFFERENCE

 

I have a very great desire to engrave on your heart and in your spirit, a maxim of incomparable utility, and it is this, Ask for nothing, refuse nothing: Accept what one offers you and do not ask for what one does not like to give you.  In this practice, you will experience a great sense of peace (Mt. 11;29).  Yes, my dear Sisters, hold your hearts in this holy indifference to receive all that is given to you and never to desire what would not be given to you.  I say this in brief: Desire nothing, but leave yourselves and all your preoccupations fully and perfectly in the care of divine Providence.  Let Him do with you in the same way children let their nurses guide them: Whether she carries you on the right arm or on the left, let her do it, for children rarely insist; whether she puts you to bed or lifts you out of it, let her do it for she is a good mother who knows better than you. (Spiritual Conferences Vol. 2, 6)

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Ask for nothing and refuse nothing. (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 50)

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The indifferent heart is as a ball of wax in the hands of its God, receiving with equal readiness all the impressions of the divine pleasure. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 4)

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Remain in indifference as to having or not having spiritual goods. (Letters to Persons in Religion, V, 5)

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Holy indifference goes beyond resigna­tion: for it loves nothing except for the love of God's will.  (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 4)

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If I desire pure water only, what care I whether it be served in a golden vessel or in a glass. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 4)

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We must not only consent for God to strike us, but we must let it be in the place which He pleases. (Letters to Persons in the World, VII, 9)

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You are quite willing to have a cross, but you want to have the choice. (Letters to Persons in the World, VI 2 )

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The truly indifferent soul would prize hell more with God's will than heaven without it. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 4)

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Where there is true indifference there can be no trouble or sadness. (Spiritual Conferences, 8)

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Young apprentices in the love of God gird themselves, choose mortifications as seems good to themselves and try to do their own will at the same time as that of God; but old masters of the craft let themselves be girded by others and go by ways which according to their own in­clination they do not choose. (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI, 24)

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What should it matter to us whether it is by the deserts or by the meadows we go, if God is with us and we go into Paradise? (Letters to Persons in Religion, VI, 3)

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She is an all-pure soul who cannot love the Paradise of God, but only the God of Paradise. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 5)

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You must remain calm and indifferent between desolation and consolation. (Spiritual Conferences, 2)

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To leave off doing a good when God pleases, and to return from half way when God's will ordains it—these are marks of a most perfect indifference. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 6)

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We are to omit nothing which is req­uisite to bring the work which God has put into our hands to a happy issue, yet upon the condition that, if the event be contrary, we should lovingly embrace it. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 6)

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Most injuries are more happily met by the indifference which is shown for them than by any other means. (Letters to Persons in the World, I, 11)

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It is a greater virtue to eat without choice what is set before you, than always to choose the worst. (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 23)

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O God! How this word acceptance is great with love! (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 2)

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Never make a difficulty as to receiving what God sends you on the right or on the left. (Letters to Persons in Religion, I, 2)

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To the detached soul it is all one to her whether she serve God by meditating, or serve Him by bearing with her neigh­bor—both are the will of God, but the bearing with her neighbor is necessary at that time. (Letters to Persons in the World, III, 11)

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The holy indifferent soul which wills nothing, but lets God will what pleases Him, should be said to have its will in a simple and general state of waiting. (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 15)

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What matters it to a truly loving soul whether God be served by this means or by another? (Letters to Persons in Religion, III, 25)

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