Five Signs of Spiritual Progress and Growth
ONE: If we are discontented with our present state, whatever it may be, and want to be something better and higher, we have great reason to be thankful to God. For such discontent is one of His best gifts, and a great sign that we are really making progress in the spiritual life…
TWO: Again, strange as it may sound, it is a sign of our growth if we are always making new beginnings and fresh starts… .. For these new starts seen something higher, and therefore for the most part something arduous; whereas fickleness is tired of the yoke, and seeks ease and change…..
THREE: It is also a sign of progress in the spiritual life, when we have some definite thing in view: for instance, if we are trying to acquire the habit of some particular virtue, or to conquer some besetting infirmity, or to accustom ourselves to a certain penance. All this is a test of earnestness, and also a token of the vigor of divine grace within us..
FOUR: But it is a still greater sign that we are making progress, if we have a strong feeling on our minds that God wants something particular from us… To feel then, with all sober reverence, this drawing of the Holy Ghost, is a sign that we are making progress. Yet it must be carefully remembered that no one should be disquieted because of the absence of such a feeling. It is neither universal nor indispensable.
FIVE: I will venture also to add that an increased general desire of being more perfect is not altogether without its value as a sign of progress: and that, in spite of what I have said of the importance of having a definite object in view. I do not think we esteem this general desire of perfection sufficiently. Of course we must not stop at it nor be satisfied with it. It is only given us to go on with.
–Frederick Faber (1814-1863)
