THE PRACTICE OF SURRENDER TO GOD
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(The following various passages are quoted from The Gift of Oneself by Father Joseph Schryvers C.S.S.R. Pg. 59-66.)
The science of the spiritual life consists not so much in understanding the obligation of giving oneself to God, as in understanding the practice of this surrender.
The act of giving must be renewed frequently. This is the exercise of self-surrender. It is practiced with the same simplicity, the same quiet sweetness, which the surrendered soul gives to all her duties.
In the morning, on awakening, the soul turns to God and gives Him her whole being, praying Him to dispose of her as He will. For her, this act takes the place of long prayers.
During her occupations, she is mistress of herself, acting without slowness and without precipitation, letting herself be ruled neither by a wish to attract the esteem of others, nor by the pleasure she finds in her task.
She undertakes her task without passion, pursues it in a detached manner, as a past time which Jesus has allotted to her while she is waiting for Him coming. She finishes without haste, knowing that after this duty another will come. She often repeats, to prevent impatient activity: “While I am fulfilling this obligation, I do not need to fulfill another; while I am in this place by the Will of God, I need not be anywhere else.
Thus, in full possession of herself, she carries out her duties successively, with a disengaged heart. This interior liberty permits her to undertake all with open mind and sustained attention, without weariness, precipitation, languor or slowness.
The men who are most active have the least air of being so. Those who are agitated and bustling do almost nothing. They begin, but do not finish. After their work, they have troubled hearts, and minds preoccupied and incapable of thinking of God.
The simple soul on the contrary, imitates God who seems always in repose and is always active.
She has her own way of resisting temptations and of putting aside distractions. When she perceives them, she does not drive them away in a direct manner as one chases away flies by a wave of the hand; she ignores them and is content with repeating: “Jesus, I am wholly Thine. Help me.” An ardent act of love is her response to all the suggestions of the demon. Therefore, she is never tempted long. The enemy know that each temptation causes a new lifting of her heart to Jesus.
TO FORGET ONESELF
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(The following various passages are quoted from The Gift of Oneself by Father Joseph Schryvers C.S.S.R. Pg. 63 and Pgs. 138-140.)
Whoever wishes to love God must have courage to forget self and to be surrendered to Him without calculating the cost, without reservation.
The soul that has given herself no longer belongs to herself. In her own eyes she is consecrated. She no longer has any interests save those of the Master.
To forget oneself – this is, therefore, the great law of the whole spiritual life.
To forget oneself is to exclude from one’s actions, sufferings and prayers all human calculations, all reservations for self-love, all egotistic intention.
To forget oneself is to accept simply from the hand of God, all crosses, all contradictions, without complaint, without examining their duration, their nature, regarding them as if they concerned someone else.
To forget oneself is to be moderate in seeking personal satisfactions, avoiding those that are unlawful and choosing only those which Providence offers.
To forget oneself is to estimate self at its just value, that is to say, a sinful nothingness; it is to turn one’s attention and the attention of others away from one’s own person, qualities and work; it is to avoid an anxious and unduly prolonged search into one’s own weaknesses.
To forget oneself is to disappear from one’s own sight by an act of the will and nevermore to find, in self or in others, in persons or in things, aught save Jesus and His Holy Will.