A few Lents ago, my wife and I read Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s Abandonment to Divine Providence. Recently, I was doing a bit of research, and I was flipping through my copy. I came across this line that was just too perfect, given everything that’s happened this year:
“The souls of the just are the paper; the suffering and actions are the ink.”
Having started a company called Pray on Paper, I immediately double underlined and feverishly re-copied it into my notebook.
There is an equalness to each of our lives: we all are born, we all have one life to live, we all die. There is this common denominator with our lives. We all live in a time and place, surrounded by other people, with a vocation.
In the most basic sense, given that if you are reading this, God called you out of nothingness to be His paper. That is true for every one of us. God desires to tell a story through us.
But the beauty in the spiritual life is that the work that God creates in our lives, the story He writes, the painting He creates and finishes, is unique to us. Because going back to Caussade’s words our “sufferings and actions are the ink.” And while there may be similarities, no two people live the exact same life.
Now notice that the ink is the material with which the story is physically written, but it is not the story itself. In a sense, it is a representation of the story. That is what our lives are: they are a representation, a reflection of God, not in His totality, but in a specific way that God wants to reveal in us. And collectively, through all of our lives, God weaves the short stories, the novellas, the epics together into His Story.
We might see the parallel here to the Bible, to how sacred Scriptures is a tapestry of individuals and peoples, across time and space, woven together to tell the story of Salvation. But that story is continuing in us.
Because the Word of God is both the Bible and Christ Himself. This means that if Christ lives inside each of us, if He lives through us, if He is a part of our suffering and our actions, if we unite our will to the Father’s will through Christ, then the Word of God is written in our hearts.
I have journaled in some form or another for most of my adult life. My journals are a colorful collection of random notebooks filled with long entries, short ones, and yearlong gaps. But, back in 2015, my wife was youth minister and together we attended a young adult retreat for our parish.
At this time, I was a grad school drop out, which really meant that I had to shut the door on what I thought was my career path and make a pivot. In the short term, I had started working for our neighbors who put on business leadership workshops. But, I didn’t think that was going to be long term. On this retreat, I wrote in my journal: “Lord, I want to say yes to You. I am ready to say yes in a big way. But I don’t know what that is.”
I’m still unpacking our Lord’s response to that prayer, but sometimes that’s all we can say or do. We can echo Isaiah’s words: “Here I am. Send me!”
There’s so much here that we’re barely scratching the surface of, but I return to Cassade’s words: “The souls of the just are the paper, the suffering and actions are the ink.”
Do we desire to have God write His story in our hearts?
Are we willing to accept that our hand is not the one controlling the pen?
If we are, then our lives will be a story unlike any other, part of an even bigger story, the depths of which we cannot fathom.
Maybe today all we have to think about is the paper and the ink. What suffering is God sending us today? What actions is He asking us to take today, and can we offer those up for His glory, for His story?
PS: Want to go deeper? Here are three ways:
The Pray on Paper Club: A Catholic prayer mail club, delivered to your mailbox. Every month, a curated envelope arrives with sacred art, spiritual reading, prayers from the saints, a prayer intention from a fellow member, and much more.
The Prayer Journals: The Examination Journal and the Little Prayer Journal. Simple tools for building a habit of daily prayer through journaling and the examen.
The Victor’s Crown: If you enjoyed this (and you’re not already subscribed), start your morning with a 2-minute reflection every weekday. Free, by email or in your podcast app.