In the state of abandonment the only rule is the duty of the present moment. In this the soul is light as a feather, liquid as water, simple as a child, active as a ball in receiving and following all the inspirations of grace. Such souls have no more consistence and rigidity than molten metal. As this takes any form according to the mould into which it is poured, so those souls are pliant and easily receptive of any form that God chooses to give them. In a word, their disposition resembles the atmosphere, which is affected by every breeze; or water which flows into any shaped vessel excatly filling every crevice. They are before God like a perfectly woven fabric with a clear surface; and neither think nor seek to know what God will be pleased to trace thereon; because they have confidence in Him, they abandon themselves to Him and entirely absorbed by their duty they think not of themselves nor of what may be necessary for them nor of how to obtain it. The more assiduously do they apply themselves to their little work, so simple, so hidden, so secret and outwardly contemptible, the more does God embroider and embellish it with brilliat colours. On the surface of this simple canvas of love and obedience His hand traces the most beautiful design, the most delicate and intricate pattern, the most divine figures.
It is true that a canvas simply and blindly given up to the work of the pencil only feels its movement at each moment, Each blow of the hammer on the chisel can only produce one cruel mark at a time, and the stone struck be repeated blows cannot know, nor see the form produced by them. It only feels that it is being diminished, filed, cut, and altered by the chisel. And a stone that is destined to become a crucifix or a statue without knowing it, if it were asked “What is happening to you?” would reply if it could speak, “Do not ask me, I only know one thing and that is to remain immovable in the hands of my master, to love him and to endure all that he inflicts upon me. As for the end for which I am destined it is his business to understand how it is to be accomplished; I am as ignorant of what he is doing as of what I am destined to become; all I know is that his work is the best and the most perfect that could be and I receive each blow of the chisel as the most excellent thing that could happen to me, although truth to tell each blow in my opinion causes the idea of ruin, destruction, disfigurement. But that is not my affair, content with the present moment, I think of nothing but my duty and I endure the work of this clever master without knowing or occupying myself about it.”
