We know that we must suffer, and that we deserve it. Nevertheless, we are always surprised at affliction, as if we thought we neither deserved it nor needed it. Only true and pure love delights to endure, for nothing else is perfectly free from restraint. Resignation induces us to bear pain, but there is something in it that is afflicted in suffering and resists. The resignation that measures out its abandonment to God, selfishly reflecting upon itself, is willing to suffer, but is constantly examining to make sure whether it is suffering acceptably. In fact, the resigned soul is composed so to speak of two persons: one keeping the other in subjection, and watching, so that it will not revolt. 

   In love that is unselfish and abandoned, the soul is fed in silence on the cross and in its union with the crucified Savior, without any reflections on the severity of its sufferings. There exists only one single, simple will, which permits God to see it just as it is, without trying to see itself. It says nothing, does nothing. What, then, does it do? It suffers. And is this all? Yes, all. It has nothing else to do but suffer. Love can be heard easily enough without speech or thought. It does all that it is required to do, which is to have no will when it is stripped of all consolation. The purest of all loves is a will so filled with the will of God that there remains nothing else.

   What a consolation it is that we are then rid of so many anxieties about our exercise of patience and the other virtues in the sight of those around us! It is enough to be humbled and abandoned in the midst of suffering. This is not courage. It is something both more and less: less in the eyes of the ordinary class of Christians, more in the eyes of pure faith. 

Talking With God - Francois Fenelon