Souls who can recognize God in the most trivial, the most grievous and the most mortifying things that happen to them in their lives, honor everything equally with delight and rejoicing, and welcome with open arms what others dread and avoid.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes finding divine presence in all aspects of life, both positive and negative.
Jean-Pierre De Caussade's quote highlights the ability of certain individuals to perceive the sacred in both the mundane and the challenging experiences of life. These souls have a unique capacity to embrace every circumstance with joy and acceptance, transforming adversity into an opportunity for growth and recognizing the value in everything around them, where many might shrink away in fear or avoidance.
In practice
In a speech about resilience, one could use this quote to illustrate finding positivity in tough situations.
There is not a moment in which God does not present Himself under the cover of some pain to be endured, of some consolation to be enjoyed, or of some duty to be performed. All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action.
If the work of our sanctification presents us with difficulties that appear insurmountable, it is because we do not look at it in the right way. In reality, holiness consists in one thing alone, namely, fidelity to God's plan. And this fidelity is equally within everyone's capacity in both its active and passive exercise.
The books the Holy Spirit is writing are living, and every soul a volume in which the divine author makes a true revelation of his word, explaining it to every heart, unfolding it in every moment.
There is no peace more wonderful than the peace we enjoy when faith shows us God in all created things.
You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.
God instructs the heart, not by ideas but by pains and contradictions.
...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.
You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover.
What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America - our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal.
There is object proof that homosexuality is more interesting than heterosexuality. It's that one knows a considerable number of heterosexuals who would wish to become homosexuals, whereas one knows very few homosexuals who would really like to become heterosexuals.
People now live their lives like an open wound to be famous - they do bad things because they're rewarded for it.
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