Salesian Literature

Chapter 12:  God’s inspirations leave us perfectly free to accept or reject them

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I am not going to speak of those miraculous graces which have almost at once changed wolves into shepherds, persecutors into preachers; graces which so struck stony hearts that they melted on the spot.  I am ignoring those all-powerful calls, those intense attractions, by which God instantaneously translated certain chosen souls from depths of sin to heights of grace – working some kind of moral and spiritual transubstantiation in them, you might say – as happened to the great apostle: from being Saul, the instrument of persecution, he suddenly became Paul, the instrument of God’s choice (Acts. 9:15).

 

What, then, are the ordinary reins by which God usually draws the hearts of men to love him? Such, indeed, as he himself indicates, describing the means he used to draw the people of Israel out of Egypt, through the desert, into the promised land: Sons of Adam, he says through Osee, they should be drawn with leading-strings of love (Osee 11:4), of friendship.  No question of it, Theotimus: we are not drawn to God by iron chains, like bulls, like wild oxen; we are drawn by allurements, by delightful attractions, by holy inspirations, which are – after all – the leading-strings of love … in other words, they are tailored, suited to the human heart, for which freedom is natural.

 

The chains that bind the human will are delight and pleasure.  “Show a child nuts,” says St. Augustine[1], “and it is attracted by its love for them; the attraction is due to leading-strings, not of the body, but of the heart.”  Notice, then, how the Eternal Father attracts us: he delights us by his teaching; but he brings no pressure to bear on us.  He pours spiritual delights and pleasures into our hearts as bait to tempt us gently to accept and taste the sweetness of his doctrine.

 

Grace, then, in no way brings force or necessity to bear on our free wills.  Grace is so gracious, lays hold of our hearts so graciously, that it in no way impairs the will’s freedom.  It pulls the strings of the soul powerfully; yet so delicately that free will suffers no compulsion from it.  Grace is powerful – not to compel the heart, but to allure it; grace is vehement – not to outrage our liberty, but to fill it full of love; grace is intensely active – but so gently, it does not override the will: grace exerts influence on us – yet it does not suppress our freedom.  Under the very impulse of grace, therefore, we can give our consent or offer resistance to its impulses, just as we please.

 

What is as wonderful as it is true, however, is that when our wills follow God’s attraction, consent to his impulses, their assent is as freely given as is their resistance if they refuse – though consent to grace depends more on grace than on the will, while resistance to grace depends solely on the will.  How kindly God handles the human heart!  How skilfully he lends his power without interfering with our freedom, so that activity of grace does not impede activity of will!  He combines strength with gentleness in such a way that, when it comes to doing good, his strength gently gives us power, while his gentleness firmly preserves our freedom of will.

 

God’s inspirations prompt us; before we can even think of them, they make themselves felt.  Once they are felt, however, it is for us to assent to them, to lend our own efforts, to follow their attraction; or else to refuse them, repel them.  They make themselves felt without our cooperation; if we are to consent to them, however, our cooperation is essential.

 

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[1]  Homily 26 on St. John’s gospel.

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