Dross of Self

“… Somehow, by the trials and tribulations of this life, our souls must be purified of this dross of self if we are to become ultimately acceptable to God. For each of us the trails will come in different ways and at different times – for some, self may be easier to overcome than for others – but we were created to do God’s will and not our own, to make our own wills conform to His and not vice versa. We can daily pray for the grace to do this, without always meaning it; we can promise quite easily in prayer that we will do it. What we fail to see is how much of self still resides in that promise, how much we are trusting in our own powers when we way that we will do it. In large tests or small, therefore, God must sometimes allow us to act on our own so we can learn humility, so we can learn the truth of our total dependence on Him, so we can learn that all our actions are sustained by His grace and that without Him we can do nothing – not even make our own mistakes.

… And the stronger the ingredient of self develops in our lives, the more severe must our humiliations be in order to purify us.”

- He Leadeth Me, by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., pgs. 69-70