Salesian Literature

Chapter 10  :  How to comply with God’s will declared by inspirations; their various kinds

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The sun’s rays give both light and warmth together.  Inspiration is a ray of grace bringing light and warmth to our hearts: light to show us what is good; warmth to give us energy to go after it.  The Holy Spirit is infinite light; he is the living breath we call inspiration.  Through his Spirit God breathes into us, inspires us with the desires or intentions of his heart.

 

The ways he has of inspiring us are past all counting.  St. Anthony, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anselm, and many others, often received inspirations while looking at creatures.  Preaching, however, is the usual way; but occasionally those who are not helped by hearing the word are taught by trials.  St. Mary of Egypt was inspired by seeing a picture of our Lady; St. Anthony by hearing the gospel read at Mass; St. Augustine by listening to a life of St. Anthony; the Duke of Gandia[1] by the sight of an empress’ corpse; St. Pachomius by noticing an act of charity; the saintly Ignatius of Loyola by reading he lives of the Saints.

 

One night, when I was a young man in Paris, two students (one of whom was a heretic) were indulging in sinful pleasures in the suburb of St. James, when they heard the Charterhouse bell tolling for matins.

 

The heretic asked what it was ringing for, to be told by his companion how the monks carried out their sacred duties in that holy monastery.

 

“Heaven help us,” he murmured, “what is our way of living in comparison with theirs?  They live like angels, we like brute beasts.”

 

Anxious to see for himself what his friend had told him, he went the following day to find the fathers in their stalls, as it were a row of marble statues in their niches, motionless but for their charming, to which they were giving an attention and devotion that was really angelic, as is the Carthusian custom.  Lost in wonder, the poor youth was overjoyed to see how beautifully Catholics worship God, and made up his mind to sober down in the bosom of the Church – the one true bride of the Christ who had visited him by inspiration in the sink of iniquity where he had been wallowing.

 

Blessed are those whose hearts are ever open to God’s inspiration; they will never lack what they need to live good holy lives, or to perform properly the duties of their state.  For just as God gives each animal through its nature the instincts needed for its self-preservation and for the use of its natural powers, so – if we offer no obstacle to grace – he gives each of us the inspirations needed for life, activity and self-preservation on the spiritual level.

 

When we are at a loss what to do, when human help fails us in our dilemma, then it is that God inspires us.  If only we are humbly obedient, he will not let us go astray.

 

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[1]  St. Francis Borgia.

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