Abandonment

The Crucifixion, Diego Velazquez

I am reading (as one of my current stack of books) the book I Believe in Love, which is a series of retreat talks on the Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux. What a beautiful book to begin the New Year with, full of meditations on the deep and abiding love of Jesus for each one of us.  I would like to share this quote on abandonment, which has so spoken to my heart:

"Abandonment, rightly understood, includes everything.  It requires a great humility, since it is submission of oneself to creatures and events, seeing Jesus himself in them.  It requires an immense faith, confidence every moment, to tear open the veil of secondary causes, to break through the screen of creatures which too often prevents us from seeing Jesus behind them, who governs everything, since nothing, nothing happens without his having willed or permitted it.

"Abandonment is nothing but obedience pushed to its extreme, since it consists of submission to everything within the limits of the possible and the reasonable, in order to obey God who has foreseen and willed it all.

"Finally, it is in abandonment that our great desires find their perfect fulfillment...

"To live with abandonment is to rediscover a perfect harmony in God; for, after all, it is God, it is Jesus, who writes all the lines, all the words, and all the letters of our lives..."  I Believe in Love, Pere Jean D'Elbee