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What the Storm Teaches Us

  • FATHER JEAN-NICOLAS GROU, S.J.

If we wish to receive the strength of God, we must despoil ourselves of our own strength.


storm Or rather of what we imagine to be our strength, for in reality we have no strength at all for the practice of any supernatural good.

Thus we must willingly consent to feel continually our weakness and want of power, that so the efficacy of divine grace may alone strengthen us.  The stronger we are in God, the weaker we become in ourselves; and when the feeling of our own strength is utterly annihilated, the divine strength will display itself in us in all its virtue, without finding any obstacle on our part.

If we wish to leave to God the disposal of all the events of our life, we must wish for nothing, foresee nothing, make no plans for the future, but remain calmly and peacefully where God places us, and take no other measures than those which we feel plainly are his will.

A perfect union with God embraces all that I have just said, and it extends to all our free actions without exception, whether interior or exterior.  And if we are united to God, we shall have the dispositions of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, and God himself will guide all the events of our lives as he guided those of Jesus Christ.  Then we shall resemble our Lord Jesus as much as is possible for us to resemble him, and we shall attain in this life to the degree of sanctity which God wishes for us.

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Acknowledgement

Father Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J. "What the Storm Teaches Us." excerpt from Manual for Interior Souls: A Collection of Unpublished Writings (Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1892).

Manual for Interior Souls: A Collection of Unpublished Writings is out of print and in the public domain. This excerpt appeared in Magnificat in 2015.

The Author

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Fr. Jean Nicolas Grou (1731–1803) lived through times of tremendous turmoil, first as a Jesuit novice when Jesuits were surpressed, and later during the French Revolution. He is author of The Spiritual Life: A Comprehensive Manual for Catholics Seeking SalvationMeditations Upon The Love Of God, How To Pray, The practical science of the Cross in the use of the sacraments of penance and the eucharist and The Spiritual Maxims of Pere Grou.

Copyright © Father Jean-Nicolas Grou, S.J.

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