Faith in the means the Lord gives us works miracles. On one occasion, the Lord asked a man to do something he knew from long experience he could not do: to stretch out a "withered" hand, devoid of movement. Yet docility—the mark of an active faith—made the miracle possible: *he stretched it out, and it was restored as sound as the other.* Sometimes, we will be asked to do things we feel incapable of, but which will be possible if we allow God’s grace to act within us. This grace, very often, will reach us as a result of docility in spiritual direction.
The Lord asks us not to rely solely on human support, which would lead to pessimism, but to have supernatural confidence. He asks us to be "supernaturally realistic," which means counting on Him, knowing that Jesus Christ continues to act in our lives.
Ten men find their healing because they are docile. Jesus Christ simply tells them: *“Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.*
On another occasion, the Lord took pity on a beggar blind from birth and, as St. John tells us, Jesus spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva; He anointed the man's eyes with this clay and said to him: *“Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”* The beggar did not hesitate for a moment. *So he went and washed, and came back seeing.*
> "What an example of sure faith this blind man offers us! A living, operative faith (...). What power did the water contain, that by moistening the eyes they were healed? A mysterious eye-salve, a precious medicine prepared in the laboratory of a wise alchemist, would have seemed more appropriate. But that man believes; he puts God’s command into practice, and he returns with eyes full of light."
Blindness, defects, and weaknesses are evils that have a remedy. We can do nothing, but Jesus Christ is omnipotent. The water of that pool remained water, and the mud, mud. But the blind man recovered his sight, and later, gained a more living faith in the Lord. Thus, so many times throughout the Gospel, the faith of those who seek Jesus is shown to us. Without docility, spiritual direction would remain fruitless. And one cannot be docile if they insist on being stubborn, obstinate, or incapable of assimilating an idea different from their own or one dictated by a negative experience where they lacked the help of grace. The proud person is incapable of being docile because, to learn, one must be convinced that there are still things we do not know and that it is necessary for someone to teach us. To improve spiritually, we must be convinced that we are not yet as good as God expects us to be.
Regarding matters of our own interior life, we must be prepared with a prudent distrust of our own judgment, so that we can accept a criterion different from or even opposite to our own. We must let God make and remake us through events and inspirations, and through the light received in spiritual direction—with the docility of clay in the hands of the potter. Without offering resistance, with supernatural vision, hearing Christ through that person. As Sacred Scripture tells us: *I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working at the wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do (...). Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.*
Availability, docility, letting ourselves be made and remade by God as many times as necessary. This can be the resolution of our prayer today, which we will carry out with the help of the Blessed Virgin.
---HCD