Here is my summary & favourite quotes from this book:
Spiritual Receptivity: Based on Faith, Hope and Love
Fr. Jacques Philippe puts forward spiritual receptivity as the key disposition we need to have. A welcoming attitude of receptivity is the #1 task of the spiritual life. The Christian life is primarily about welcoming God’s gifts – a work of divine grace 1st, and human effort & response second.
How do we receive all that God wants to give us? And how do we keep ourselves open to His continued action?
What is important in the Christian life is not to rush into a multitude of exterior works but to discover and to practice the attitudes and behaviours that open us up to the work of the Spirit. All the rest will flow from that, and we will be in a position to accomplish the “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). The spiritual life is not so much about doing as letting be done, letting God act in us, work through us. 8
“The merit doesn’t consist in doing nor in giving a lot, but rather in receiving, in loving a lot,” Thérèse of Lisieux said. – St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Fundamentally, the 3 attitudes are the theological virtues of faith, hope and love.
1: Faith
“To be Christian is not above all about fulfilling a task, a list of things to do. It is about welcoming, though faith (a faith entwined with hope and love), the immense gift offered freely to us” (5).
Faith is an open and receptive attitude to God’s never-failing love. Jesus told St. Faustina that the more a soul trusts in Him, the more it will receive (1578).
“The greatness of Mary is the greatness of her faith. She was filled with the Spirit because of her faith, and the thing she most desires to communicate to us is precisely the force of her faith. It is by faith that every grace, every gift of the Spirit, every divine blessing comes to us, as St. Paul ceaselessly affirms. Faith is the essence of our capacity to receive the free gift of God. And here we see why Jesus insists so much on this point in the Gospel: “Where is your faith?” (Lk 8:25). (21)
“Frequenting the Eucharist fosters an attitude of faith in us. It teaches us not to trust in mere appearances but to make the Word of God the grounding of our perception of reality, with confidence in the truth of this Word. It obliges us not to remain at the level of our impressions but to take seriously this Word and the divine universe to which it gives access” (73).
“Our most urgent need is to increase our faith. Sometimes I say jokingly that the only real problem in the end is lack of faith. All other problems, confronted with faith, are not so much problems as occasions of human spiritual growth. “Everything is a grace,” said St. Thérèse, not long before her death.7 Even the worst difficulties, lived in faith and hope, sooner or later turn to our advantage, disclosing hidden treasures more beautiful and precious than any we could have devised on our own” (74).
2. Hope
The worst impurity is not letting ourselves be looked upon by God, fleeing from his glance, lacking trust in his love and hope for his mercy (25). Whereas, “to let Jesus look at us: it is the most important thing in our life” (26). “My God’s glance, his ravishing Smile, That is Heaven for me!” (St. Therese)
To love in every situation requires trust in God, trust in life, faith and hope. Faith and hope are, we might say, love’s wings—without which it can’t take flight. As soon as faith or love is diminished, love also suffers. Thus the only way to win freedom is to grow in faith, hope, and love. 53
The experience of radical weakness compels us to a kind of surrender by which we recognize our poverty, accept the fact that we are not absolute masters of our lives, count on God alone, and place ourselves at his mercy with boundless trust. Then God acts and does splendid things, things sometimes visible but often hidden. 3
From the moment I make a sincere and real act of hope (a loving, confident hope, desiring to give myself to God), I can be certain of being in touch with God, no matter what positive or disagreeable emotions I may happen to be feeling or what thoughts, whether light or dark, fill my mind. St. John of the Cross often insisted that faith suffices for someone united to God, a great consolation indeed. 102
3. Love
To love in every situation requires trust in God, trust in life, faith and hope. Faith and hope are, we might say, love’s wings—without which it can’t take flight. As soon as faith or love is diminished, love also suffers. Thus the only way to win freedom is to grow in faith, hope, and love. 53
We are, however, always free to believe, to hope, and to love. Even in prison, even in the worst of situations, a person can always make acts of faith and hope together with decisions in favor of love in his or her own heart. Within us we possess an inalienable space of freedom. It makes us more and more free to grow in faith, hope, and love. The theological virtues have an immense liberating value: Faith frees us from doubt, error, lies, blindness, and nonsense. Hope frees us from fear, discouragement, worry, and guilt. Love frees us from egoism, avarice, turning in on ourselves, and a narrow, meaningless life without value or fruitfulness. It frees us from frustrations and bitterness. The measure of our freedom is the measure of our faith, of our hope, of our love. 53
Prodigal Catholic 
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