The Complete Fenelon (Paraclete Giants)

by François Fénelon

Again, your soul is infinitely more sin-sick than that distressed, stricken patient, and God alone can heal you. Everything depends on his being moved by your prayers. He is able for all this: but remember that he wills to act only when he is asked earnestly and with real neediness.

What are you afraid of? Of leaving that which will soon leave you? What are you afraid of? Of following too much goodness, finding a too-loving God; of being drawn by an attraction that is stronger than self or the charms of this poor world? What are you afraid of? Of becoming too humble, too detached, too pure, too true, too reasonable, too grateful to your Father who is in heaven? I implore you, be afraid of nothing so much as of this false fear—this foolish, worldly wisdom that hesitates between God and self, between vice and virtue, between gratitude and ingratitude, between life and death.

It is false humility to believe ourselves unworthy of God’s goodness and to not dare to look to him with trust. True humility lies in seeing our own unworthiness and giving ourselves up to God, never doubting that he can work out the greatest results for and in us.

Do not fear then, that your past faithlessness must make you unworthy of God’s mercy. Nothing is so worthy of mercy as utter weakness. He came from heaven to earth to seek sinners, not the righteous; to seek that which was lost—as indeed all were lost if it were not for him. The physician seeks the sick, not the healthy. Oh, how God loves those who come boldly to him in their foul, ragged garments, and ask, as of a father, for some garment worthy of him!