<\/p>\n
There are very Saint Ignatius of Loyola to Ascanio Colonna, Rome, April 25, 1543<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are very few men who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves entirely to His hands, and let themselves be formed by His Grace. A thick and shapeless tree trunk would never believe that it could become a statue, admired as a miracle of sculpture … and would never consent … Continue reading Trusting God enough to abandon the self to Him at all costs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1792],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfew men who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves
\nentirely to His hands, and let themselves be formed by His Grace. A thick and
\nshapeless tree trunk would never believe that it could become a statue, admired
\nas a miracle of sculpture … and would never consent to submit itself to the
\nchisel of the sculptor who, as St. Augustine says, sees by his genius what he
\ncan make of it. Many people who, we see, now scarcely live as Christians, do
\nnot understand that they could become saints, if they would let themselves be
\nformed by the grace of God, if they did not ruin His plans by resisting the
\nwork which He wants to do<\/span>… In this life a thing is good only in the degree in
\nwhich it serves eternal life. And it is evil in that degree in which it makes
\nus turn aside or away from it. In this way the soul, suffering contradictions
\non this earth, enlightened and purified by the eternal dew, builds its nest on
\nthe heights, concentrates all its desires on the search for Christ crucified
\nsince, after being crucified in this life, it will rise to life with Him in the
\nnext.<\/span><\/p>\n