The Seraphic One had calmed me a bit. A letter arrived from Father Migliorini, who, by wanting to demand the impossible from a being, pushed this being back into the depths of the storm.
I realize that theories are the shield which rises up and conceals the reality and the union and the assonance between two spirits. Those who, through the goodness of God, who has given them an organism devoid of nervous energy and impulses, and so forth, have thus settled readily into the niche of “that’s the way it is and that’s the way it must be” cannot at all understand those who have quite different springs on their device and vibrate at even slight touches. At rough touches they vibrate to the point of breaking. What suffices for Tom is of no use for Harry. Rather, it is a source of greater pain, danger, excitation, and rebellion for Harry.
One must not anchor oneself to theory, Father, as if to a buoy. One must weigh anchor and introduce oneself into the same sea in which the little ship of a soul, caught in the whirlpool of a severity which breaks it, finds itself tossed about and dismasted. And understand what the painful disillusionment coming after its trusting love, which felt so certain of God’s favor towards a request which no one can deem illicit, means for that soul.
To believe through a pure act of faith is sufficient to be saved. And I hope to be able to go on believing. But to believe by a loving conviction is a magnet which attracts one to the summit of Heaven. And how can we preserve this when our love is literally crushed, incessantly crushed - as we gather it together, for it is our life and we know we will die without it - by an inexorableness which to the lack of grace granted also joins the most complete abandonment?