Salesian Literature

Chapter 13:  The first impression of charity which God’s grace makes on the soul, before it even has faith

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Inspiration, like a wind from heaven, comes to lift us in to the atmosphere of charity.  It catches our wills, moves them by a feeling of heavenly delight, unfolding and spreading their natural tendency towards good, in such a way that it gains a hold on the soul through the natural tendency.

 

Now all this, as I have said, is done by God operating in us without our co-operation – the grace of God prompting us.  Let the soul, once it is aware of the wind of God’s grace stirring its natural tendency, contribute (however slightly) its consent to that impulse – what a stroke of good fortune!  The activity of inspiration, of grace, combines with our consent, lends strength to our weak efforts, gives life to a feeble co-operation by its own powerful operation, helping, guiding, bearing us company from charity to charity, until we make that act of faith which conversion demands.

 

God alone knows what a comfort it is for us to reflect on the way in which the Holy Spirit pours out into our hearts the first rays, the first impulses of his light, of his love!  Good Jesus, how it thrills us with pleasure – charity, sun amid the virtues, coming to life gradually, imperceptibly, until its brightness breaks upon the soul, increasing like the dawn until the splendour of its presence fills the soul with the beauty of perfect day!  A bright, beautiful, propitious and pleasant dawn, to be sure!

 

Yet, for all that, dawn is not really day; or, at least, only its beginning, day coming to birth.  So it is undoubtedly with those impulses of charity which precede that act of faith needed if we are to win God’s acceptance: correctly speaking, they are not love; or, if they are, merely initial imperfect love.  They are the green buds of spring in the garden of a soul bathed in the sunshine of charity; they are promising signs of fruit, rather than fruit itself.

 

Nevertheless, I should like you to notice how gently God works, how gradually he intensifies the grace of his inspiration in receptive hearts, drawing them after him step by step up this Jacob’s ladder.  The first attracting grace, by which he prompts and awakens us, is God’s operation in us without our co-operation; all the other graces are due to his operation too, but involve our cooperation.

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