Some Thoughts on Love, Faith, and Goodwill

From Abandonment to Divine Providence by Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Pure love sees, feels, and believes.  Pure faith believes without either seeing or feeling.  In this is shown the difference between these two states, but this difference is only apparent, not real.
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In this kingdom every soul can aspire to a crown, and whether a crown of love, or a crown of faith, it is always a crown, always the kingdom of God.  There is this difference it is true- the one in light, the other in darkness; but again what does this signify if the soul belongs to God and obeys His will?
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Let us not dishearten, nor rebuff, nor drive away anyone from that most eminent perfection to which Jesus calls everyone, exacting from them submission to the will of His heavenly Father and thus making them members of His mystical body.  He is their head only in so far as their will is in accordance with His.  Let us continually repeat to all souls that the invitation of this sweet and loving Saviour does not exact anything very difficult from them, nor very extraordinary.  He does not ask for talent and ingenuity, all He desires is that they have a good will and desire to be united to Him so that He could guide, direct and befriend them in proportion as they are so united.
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Oh!  what good policy is it to have goodwill!  What prudence there is in simplicity!  What ability in its innocence and candour!  What mysteries and secrets in its straightforwardness!
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To desire to love God is truly to love Him, and because we love Him we wish to become instruments of His action in order that His love may be exercised in, and by us.
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Goodwill, therefore, has nothing to fear.  If it fall, it can only do so under the almighty hand which guides and sustains it in all its wanderings.  It is this divine hand which turns it again to face the goal from which it has strayed; which replaces it in the right path when it has wandered.  In it the soul finds resources for the deviations to which the blind faculties which deceive it, render it subject.  It is made to feel how much it ought to despise them and to rely on God alone, abandoning itself absolutely to His infallible guidance.  The failings into which good souls fall are put an end to by abandonment.  Never can goodwill be taken unawares.  That all things work for its good is an article of faith.