210th Meditation
“We gain more in a single day by trials which come to us from God and our neighbor, than we would in ten years by penances and other exercises, which we take up of ourselves” (St. Teresa of Avila).
Let us pay close attention to what a teacher of the spiritual life says, because her advice will help us to better understand God’s ways for us and we will be able to draw the appropriate conclusions for our following of the Lord.
The decisive point is that we always act much more in accordance with God’s plan when we accept what comes directly from Him, than when we ourselves choose what seems important to us. This does not mean that we can no longer offer something to the Lord on our own initiative, but it is a profound invitation to pay close attention to the Holy Spirit, noticing how He guides us and urges us to act in conformity with Him.
St Teresa is referring here to supernatural acts, which we perform when, as in contemplation, we let God act and we cooperate with Him.
When we offer our sacrifices to the Lord, He certainly accepts them graciously and counts them as merits. There is no doubt about that! However, they do not have the same magnitude as when we directly fulfil God’s Will.
This simple example may help us to understand it better: Let us suppose that we want to do a great work and we offer the Lord one sacrifice or another, imposing on ourselves strong renunciations and abstinences. Certainly the Lord will see our efforts and regard them as an act of love on our part. But perhaps He had arranged something different for us and would have wanted us, for example, to do this or that work at another time, with our trust in Him. The Father tries to convey this to us, but we are totally absorbed in realising our own ideas of how we think we can show Him our love.
Let us remember Martha and Mary: Martha was fully occupied in serving Jesus. Mary, on the other hand, sat at His feet to listen to Him. We know what the Lord said to Martha at the end: “Mary has chosen the better part” (Lk 10:42).
What can we take away from this reflection? Let us try to enter into an intimate dialogue with our Father, to understand Him better and better and to let Him act. In this way, our life will take on an increasingly supernatural character and God will be able to do great works with us.