Surrender, a high-speed road.
Surrender is the safest path because it is extraordinarily simple. It is also universal because all of life’s possible emergencies are included. There is no danger of illusions, since, from this perspective, one contemplates pure and raw reality with objectivity and wisdom. Where there is wisdom, there are no illusions. The illusion of childish omnipotence and all the offspring of impatience crumble to the ground like almond blossoms at the blow of the north wind.
Surrendering allows pure faith and pure love to live at high voltage. Pure faith because, traversing the forest of appearances, one discovers the invisible, founding, and sustaining reality. Pure love because the blows that wound and hurt are accepted with peace.
Surrendering allows one to live permanently in a spirit of prayer because at every moment of life, we encounter small annoyances, disappointments, frustrations, discouragement, heat, cold, pain, impossible desires… and all this the beloved child relates to the loving Father. Life itself, then, compels the “abandoned” child to live perpetually devotedly, always swimming in complete peace. The greatest sorrow vanishes with a “Thy will be done.” There is no painkiller as effective as surrendering life’s sorrows.
On this path, one dies with Jesus to live with the Father. Jesus died to “what I want” in Gethsemane to accept “what you want.” The “abandoned” dies to their own will, which manifests itself in so much resistance. They extinguish the living voices of resentment, rest their head in the Father’s hands, are at peace, and live there, free and happy. They become like that white host, so poor, so free, so obedient, which, at the consecrating words, surrenders itself to become the body of Christ. They become like those tiny drops of water that surrender themselves without resistance to be completely lost in the wine of the chalice.
Surrendering fulfills life because complexes disappear, security is born, one struggles without anguish, one doesn’t worry about results that depend only on the Father, and all human potential is realized to the fullest. It softens death. I have seen prodigies of transformation in life: I was a tense person because I knew I was leaving. I seemed like a wounded and fearful beast. In the end, she surrendered herself with the “thy will be done” and placed her life in the Father’s hands. And, almost suddenly, that face lit up with the sweetness and beauty of a sunset. It was an enviable and admirable ending. How many such cases!
Only in God the Father does the beloved child want to forget, die, and be lost, like someone who lets himself fall into an abyss of love, and there he finds complete rest. Trials, difficulties, crises, and illnesses may come… The beloved child allows himself to be carried without difficulty by each of the wills that are manifested in every detail.
Therefore, the “surrendered” child is never abandoned. The Father reaches out to the child and holds it tighter the more difficult the trials.
Therefore, all anxiety about the uncertain future disappears. What will be? What will not be? It will be what the Father wants. In the uncertain alternatives of sickness or health, esteem or oblivion, triumph or failure, desolation or consolation, it will be what my Father wants. The child will do everything possible to fight and win to the best of his ability. In all other things, he surrenders himself with serene peace. His will be done. Even if the world collapses, the child rests in complete peace.
Taken from the book “Show me your face”, Chapter III, subtitle “High-speed road” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.