But as that grace operates, it cannot (save through a miracle of the same grace) be other than painful, and
God does not perform continual miracles in the order of grace any more than in the order of nature.
It would be as great a miracle to see one full of self die suddenly of self-consciousness and self-interest as it would be to see a child go to bed a mere child and rise up the next morning [an adult]of thirty!
God hides [God’s] work beneath a series of imperceptible events, both in grace and nature, and thus [God] subjects us to the mysteries of faith. Not only does [God] accomplish [this] work gradually, but [God] does it by–the most simple and likely means, so that its success appears natural to [us].
Otherwise all that God does would be as a perpetual miracle, which would overthrow the life of faith by which [God] would have us exist.
This is an excerpt from the book The Royal Way of the Cross: Letters and Spiritual Counsels by Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
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