The apparent uselessness and faults of people chosen by God for the state of abandonment.

In the eyes of the world, these people are useless nonentities. They can expect neither esteem nor reward. This is not to suggest that people who hold important positions are thereby prevented from attaining the state of self-abandonment; nor, of course, is this state inconsistent with great holiness, which attracts universal veneration. Yet a vastly greater number of souls in this state have their virtue known only to Cod. Their condition sets them free from nearly every external obligation, and they are not suitable for worldly affairs or for anything demanding thought or steady application. They seem quite useless, weak in mind and body, with no creative power and lacking in all emotion. They involve themselves in nothing, they plan nothing, they foresee nothing and set their hearts on nothing. They are, as it were, quite uncivilized and have none of those qualities which general culture, study and thought give a human being. They are children before they have been taught how to behave, and we notice their faults which, though no worse than children’s, shock us more. God strips them of everything except their innocence so they have nothing but him alone. The world, knowing nothing of this, can judge only by appearances, finds nothing likable or worthwhile about them and so rejects and despises them. They are the laughingstock of everybody. more closely they are observed, the more they are disliked. No one knows what to make of them. Yet there is an indefinable something which seems to testify in their favor…

‘Abandonment to Divine Providence’ by Father Jean-Paul de Caussade

In honor of the year of St Joseph and a personal devotion: an angel guides Joseph as he sleeps.