(from the book “The Gift of Oneself” by Father Joseph Schryvers)
To give oneself to God is to forget self, to deposit in the Heart of Jesus all preoccupation, all solicitude, and the thousand perplexities of daily life; it is to confide to Him all one’s interests, charging Him to provide for everything, to make all things right.
To give oneself to God is to cease to be concerned with self in order to think only of God; it is to be consecrated to works which regard His glory; it is to extend, in the measure of one’s strength, the reign of truth and goodness; it is to spend oneself for one’s brethren for the love of the Master—to aid, instruct, comfort, solace, above all to convert and to bring souls to God.
The gift of oneself is a perpetual “fiat” in all events, in all vicissitudes, in all changes, interior and exterior; it is simple and filial acquiescence in all the wishes of the Heavenly Father; it is complete abandonment to all imaginable dispositions of Providence.
Happy the soul which is surrendered to Jesus in all simplicity! For Jesus in turn gives Himself. He establishes Himself as Master in the soul that loves Him. He takes in hand her interests; He disposes of all the cares which have absorbed her attention; He defends her against all her enemies, delivers her from all her anxieties, preserves her from all dangers and asks nothing in return but the gift of her heart….
To be admitted to divine familiarity with Jesus, to share His joys and to have Him share our sorrows, by our tenderness to console Him for the ingratitude of men: What a delightful destiny for responsive souls, for loving hearts!
O Jesus! I wish to be one of these happy souls. I wish to make a fraternal pact with Thee, to cede to Thee my whole heart, in order that I may possess all of Thine; to spend all the strength of my being in loving Thee; to forget myself and to go with Thee to the conquest of souls. Oh, what a heavenly vision!
