His loving hand
- FATHER JEAN PIERRE DE CAUSSADE, S.J.
There is not a moment in which God is not present with us under the cover of some pain to be endured, some obligation or some duty to be performed, or some consolation to be enjoyed.
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All that takes place within us, around us, or through us involves and conceals his divine hand.
God's hand is really and truly there, but it is invisibly present, so that we are always surprised and do not recognize his operation until it has ceased. If we could lift the veil, and if we were attentive and watchful, God would continually reveal himself to us, and we would see his hand in everything that happens to us, and rejoice in it. At every event we would exclaim, "It is the Lord!" and we would accept every fresh circumstance as a gift from God.
We would consider physical causes as very feeble instruments in the hands of an all-powerful Workman, and we would easily find that we lack nothing, and that God's watchful care disposes him to supply whatever we need at every moment. If only we had faith we would be grateful to all the external means he uses. We would cherish them, and be thankful for them in our hearts, because in the hand of God they have been so useful to us, so favorable to the work of our perfection.
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Acknowledgement
Father Jean Pierre de Caussade, S.J. "His divine hand." excerpt from The Joy of Full Surrender (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2008).
Reprinted with permission from Paraclete Press.
The Author
Father Jean Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (1675-1751) was a French Jesuit priest and writer known for his work Abandonment to Divine Providence (also translated as The Joy of Full Surrender) and his posthumously-published letters of instruction to the Nuns of the Visitation at Nancy, Spiritual Letters of Jean-Pierre De Caussade, where he was spiritual director from 1733-1740. He also spent years as preacher in southern and central France, as a college rector (at Perpignan and at Albi), and as the director of theological students at the Jesuit house in Toulouse.
