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If we have thus circumscribed and tamed our distrust—without, until the grounds for it disappear, suppressing it—the destruction of our inner peace will be prevented or repaired, though we shall still be afflicted with the residuum of pure and venomless chagrin.

Sorrow may darken our inner peace

However, a deep sorrow itself, while it never bears that specific note of peacelessness which marks the unchecked raving of mistrust, may darken out inner peace. Sometimes a person stricken with real grief will revolt against his misfortune. Unable to digest it and to pass on, he will cleave to his grief and owing to his oppression by it become paralyzed in all his vital functions. When the sorrow leads to despair or to expostulation with God, a climax of inner peacelessness is attained.

It is utterly false to hold that we ought not to sorrow over a real misfortune. (For more about this subject, see Chapter 16.) Any attempt to evade the cross, be it by a mental technique of dulling ourselves to pain or by fostering in ourselves the illusion that we are, essentially, no longer in the valley of tears but in the realm of eternal happiness, is hopelessly mistaken. We should not try to overleap suffering.

True, Jesus by His crucifixion has redeemed the world and cleansed all suffering from its poisonous sting. Yet, Jesus also spoke the words, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross” (Matt. 16:24). The cross awaits us inescapably on our life-path; and we have to accept it. We should, however, take it in imitation of Christ, and endure all suffering in the spirit of Christ, in Christ, and with Christ. If governed and shaped by those two eminently Christian attitudes of mind—resignation to God’s will and patience—all suffering will become transfigured and pleasing to God.

Sorrow and suffering can be transfigured by patience and resignation to God’s will

Patience in general, of which we have treated earlier, is, of course, implied in the virtue of acquiescence to God’s will. Full subordination and surrender to God’s absolute kingship contains an inward assent to everything that faces us inevitably and is thus the result of a decree or at least a permission of God. “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).

In these words of Jesus, all aspects of our right attitude to pain are condensed: the subordination of all our desiring and longing to the will of God; our recognition of His absolute mastery, which bids us say at every joyful or sorrowful event, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word”; our response to the infinite wisdom of God, who says to us, “My ways are not thy ways”; our awareness of the infinite glory of God and of the sublime fact that whatever has been accomplished expresses a decree or at least a permission of the holy will of God; and finally, our knowledge that “all turns to bliss for those who love God.”

Here is, in a word, resignation to God’s will—a thing impossible except as a response to the concept of the universe that is conveyed to us by Christian Revelation. It does not dissolve suffering, but it transfigures suffering and removes from it that sting which threatens to destroy our inward peace. It prevents us from remonstrating with Providence. Resignation to the will of God—our total surrender of self to God and His infinite love; our knowledge of being sheltered in Him, per ipsum, cum ipso, et in ipso (“through Him, with Him and in Him”)—this, above everything else, is what strips all worries and evils of their power to disturb our peace.

Depression can be diminished by patience and resignation to God’s will

It also plays a decisive part in our mastering of depression and the specific lack of peace it entails. Whenever something that is not a true evil but merely appears as such to our pride or our inordinate covetousness preys on our mind, we must attempt before Christ to uproot from our soul this unfounded sensitivity. The depression