May 9, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will to-morrow consider aridities as a means of increasing in love towards God: 1st, because they make His goodness show itself forth; 2d, because they dispose the soul to love Him with a more ardent love; 3d, because they make us love Him with a purer love. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to bless God in the midst of aridities, and to exalt His love, which condescends to our misery; 2d, to call upon Him to visit us by holy desires often repeated: Come to me, O Jesus, come to my help, make me to love Thee. These words shall serve as our spiritual nosegay.
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Jesus withdrawing Himself from Mary and Joseph in the journey He made from Jerusalem at the age of twelve. His parents sought Him in their distress and found Him at the end of three days. He often hides Himself thus from the soul; it seeks Him and finds Him and loves Him all the more. It was what He desired, for all is love in God's guidance of souls. Let us bless Him for this proof of His goodness, and let us beg of Him to increase our love, even by aridities.
FIRST POINT
In Aridities the Faithful Soul Better Appreciates the Love of God
There is no one who does not understand that love is all the more appreciated when it has an elevated origin and descends from thence; that the more extreme is any one's poverty, the more astonishing would it be for a monarch to lower his affections to him. Now, it is in aridity that the soul sees itself to be miserable, poor, vile, and abject; it is then, consequently, that it better appreciates the goodness of God. How is it, it says to itself, that the great God of eternity does indeed will to love me; that not only does He not forsake me who am so unworthy of His notice, but that He comes to me by His grace; that He deigns at this very moment even to show me my wretchedness, that without His aid I should not have seen; that He unites Himself to me by communion, that He overwhelms me with His bounties, both in the natural and the supernatural order? O inconceivable love! That He should love the seraphim, that He should love holy souls burning with love to Him, is of itself a great marvel, because inasmuch as being creatures they are at an infinite distance from His supreme greatness; but that a God should love me, I who am so cold, so tepid, so devoid of anything that is good, that a God who is so great should let His heart descend to such profound misery, that such infinite elevation should unite itself to such a bottomless abyss, that is indeed love carried to its highest point! Divine goodness alone could bring together such extremes; and the whole of eternity will not be long enough to sing such ineffable mercies (Ps. lxxxviii. 2). It is thus that aridities make us better appreciate the love of God. And we, when we are in those states which might be so profitable to us in this point of view, we do not give the matter a thought. What harm we do to our soul!
SECOND POINT
In Aridities the Faithful Soul Seeks God with a more Ardent Love
The absence of a beloved person renders him dearer to us when we see him once more, and the heart feels itself to be filled with more ardent love towards him. As long as a child sees its mother, it seems to forget her, and thinks only of its own amusements; but as soon as she disappears for a moment, it weeps, it calls out for her; and as soon as it has found her, it embraces her, and loves her more than before. It is because privation makes it feel the value of its mother, and so redoubles its love for her. In the same way, when God hides Himself in the night of aridities and privations, it is only to make the soul desire Him still more, in order to make it better appreciate the value of His possession, and to teach it to exercise more vigilance when it has the happiness of possessing Him. When the spouse in the Canticle lost him whom her soul loved, she sought him in his dwelling, she sought him in the streets of the city, she inquired about him of all whom she met. She did not find him (Cant. iii. 2). She sought him again, she found him at last; and her love, become more ardent through privation, made her exclaim: “I have found him whom my soul loveth: I held him and will not let him go” (Ibid. 4). Oh, why do we not appreciate in the same manner the happiness of possessing God? His absence in aridities would then make us desire Him more earnestly, seek for Him with more ardor, find Him with more love, and keep Him in us more watchfully.
THIRD POINT
In Aridities the Faithful Soul Loves God with a Purer Love
We often seek ourselves in piety; we desire to love God, but on the condition of finding pleasure in our love. We seek the God of consolations less than the consolations of God. We amuse ourselves with interior enjoyments; and in the love of God it is ourselves whom we love. But aridities purify this mixture of our own interests, and perfect the purity of our intentions. The soul which then loves, loves God for Himself alone, with a disinterested love, which has no other aid except faith. Oh, how agreeable to God is the soul which is in this state! God alone suffices and contents it: God alone in the understanding, without any ray of light; God alone in the will, without any flame of fervor; God alone in the heart, without any sweetness of consolation. Therein is merit; therein is perfection. Let us aspire to this state and ask it from God.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.