Conformity to the will of God
“As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I.”—John 14:31
God gave Jesus Christ to us both as a savior and as a master. He came on earth principally to teach us, not by his words alone but also by his own example, how we are to love God, our supreme good. And so, as we read in this day’s Gospel, he said one day to his disciples: “That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I.” To make known to the world the love I bear my eternal Father, I mean to carry out everything he commands me. And in another place he said: “I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38).
Devout souls, if you love God and wish to become saints, you must seek his will and desire what he desires. St. Paul tells us that the divine love is poured into our hearts by means of the Holy Ghost: “The charity of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Rom. 5:5). If, then, we wish for the treasure of divine love, we must constantly beseech the Holy Ghost to make us know and do the will of God. Let us always implore his light to know the divine will, and his strength to fulfill it.
I say this because many wish to love God, and yet they will not follow his will, but their own. And so today I will show you, in the first point, that our whole sanctification consists in conforming ourselves to the will of God; and in the second, how and in what things we ought in practice to conform ourselves to the divine will.
First Point.—Our sanctification consists entirely in conformity to the will of God.
1. It is certain that our salvation consists in loving God. A soul that does not love God is not living, but dead: “He that loveth not, abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). And the perfection of love consists in conforming our will to the will of God: “And life in his good will” (Ps. 29:6). “Have charity, which is the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14). This, writes the Areopagite, is the principal effect of love: to unite the wills of those who love, so that they have but one heart and one will. Our works, then—our communions, our prayers, our penances, our alms—please God only insofar as they are according to the divine will; for if they were done against the will of God, they would no longer be virtuous, but faulty and deserving of chastisement.
2. One day, while Jesus Christ was preaching in a house, he was told that his mother and his brethren were waiting for him outside. He answered: “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 12:50). By these words he meant to teach us that he acknowledged as his relatives and friends those only who do the divine will.
3. The saints in heaven love God perfectly. In what, I ask, does the perfection of their love consist? It consists in their being entirely conformed to the divine will. And so Jesus Christ taught us to ask for the grace to do the divine will on this earth as the saints do it in heaven: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). St. Teresa, therefore, used to say: “All that anyone who practices prayer should aim at is to conform his will to the divine will.” And she added: “In this consists the highest perfection; whoever practices it most excellently will receive from God the greatest gifts, and will make the greatest progress in the interior life.”
The accomplishment of the will of God has been the one end of the saints in the practice of all their virtues. Blessed Henry Suso used to say: “I would rather be the vilest worm on earth with the will of God, than a seraph with my own will.”
4. A single perfect act of conformity to the divine will is enough to make a saint. Behold St. Paul: while he was persecuting the Church, Jesus Christ appeared to him and converted him. What did the saint do then? He did nothing more than offer his will to God, that he might dispose of him as he pleased, saying: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). And at once the Lord declared him to Ananias a vessel of election and an apostle of the Gentiles: “This man is a vessel of election to carry my name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15).
He that gives his will to God gives him everything he has. He who mortifies himself for God by fasts and penances, or who gives alms, gives to God a part of himself and of his goods; but he who gives God his will gives him all, and so can say to God: Lord, having given you my will, I have nothing more to give you, for I have given you all. And this is the all that God asks of us: our heart, that is, our will. “My son, give me thy heart” (Prov. 23:26). Since, then, God so prizes our will, said the holy Abbot Nilus, we should not labor in our prayers to ask God to do what we wish, but rather to give us the grace to do all that he wishes of us.
This truth—that our whole good consists in doing the will of God—everyone knows; but the great thing is to put it into practice. Let us, then, come to the second point, where I have still to tell you many things necessary for practice.
Second Point.—How, and in what, we ought to practice conformity to the will of God.
5. That we may be ready to do the divine will whenever the occasion arises, we must beforehand offer ourselves continually to embrace in peace whatever God ordains and wills of us. So did holy David, saying: “My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready” (Ps. 107:2). And he asked nothing else of the Lord but that he would teach him to do his divine will: “Teach me to do thy will” (Ps. 142:10). He thus deserved that God should call him a man according to his own heart: “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man according to my own heart, who shall do all my wills” (Acts 13:22). And why? Because the holy king was always prepared to do whatever God willed.
6. St. Teresa offered herself to God fifty times a day, that he might dispose of her as he pleased, ready to embrace all things, whether prosperous or adverse. And here lies the heart of it: to offer ourselves to God without reserve. All are ready to unite themselves to the will of God in prosperous things; but perfection consists in uniting ourselves to it in all things that are contrary to us as well. God wills, and is pleased, that we thank him for the things that please us; but he is still more pleased when we accept adverse things with peace. Father M. Avila used to say: “A single blessed be God in adversity is worth more than six thousand thanksgivings in the things that delight us.”
7. And we ought to conform ourselves to the divine will not only in those adverse things that come to us directly from God—such as sickness, loss of property, the death of relatives or friends—but also in those which, though God likewise wills them (since whatever happens in the world is all ordained by God), nonetheless come to us indirectly, that is, by the hands of men: such as injustices, slanders, calumnies, injuries, and all other kinds of persecution. But how can this be? Does God will that others sin by wronging us in our property or our honor? No—understand this well—God does not will their sin; but he does will that we bear that loss, that humiliation; and he wills that we then conform ourselves to his will.
8. “Good things and evil… are from God” (Ecclus. 11:14). All blessings—such as riches and honors—and all afflictions—such as sickness and persecution—come from God. But note that Scripture calls them evils only because we, through our little conformity to the will of God, call them evils and misfortunes; for in truth, if we accepted them as we ought, with resignation, from the hands of God, they would become for us not evils but blessings. The jewels that make richest the crown of the saints in heaven are the tribulations they bore with patience for God, considering that all comes from his hands.
When the news was brought to holy Job that the Sabeans had carried off his property, what did he answer? “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away” (Job 1:21). He did not say that the Lord had given him his goods and that the Sabeans had taken them away, but that the Lord had given them and the Lord had taken them away; and therefore he blessed him, considering that all had happened by the divine will: “As it has pleased the Lord, so it is done: blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). The holy martyrs Epictetus and Atho, while they were tormented by the tyrant with iron hooks and burning torches, said only: Lord, may your will be done in us; and as they were dying, these were their last words: Blessed be you, O eternal God, for giving us the grace to fulfill your good pleasure in us.
9. “Whatsoever shall befall the just man, it shall not make him sad” (Prov. 12:21). A soul that loves God is not troubled by any adverse thing that happens. Cesarius relates (Bk. 10, ch. 6) that a certain monk, though he led no more austere a life than the others, nonetheless worked many miracles. The abbot, marveling at this, asked him one day what works of holiness he practiced. He answered that he was more imperfect than the others, but that his whole attention was given to conforming himself to the divine will.
And that injury, the abbot went on, that our enemy did us a few days ago on our land—were you not displeased at it? No, father, he said; on the contrary, I thanked the Lord for it, for he does or permits all things for our good. And from this the abbot recognized the holiness of this good religious. So ought we also to do in all the contrary things that happen to us. Let us always say: “Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight” (Matt. 11:26). Lord, this is pleasing to you; so let it be done.
10. He that does so enjoys the peace that the angels announced at the birth of Jesus Christ to men of good will—that is, to those who keep their will united to the will of God. These enjoy, as the Apostle says, that peace which surpasses all the pleasures of sense: “The peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). A great and lasting peace, not subject to change: “A holy man continueth in wisdom like the sun; but a fool is changing like the moon” (Ecclus. 27:12).
The fool—that is, the sinner—changes like the moon, which today waxes and tomorrow wanes: today he is seen laughing like a madman, tomorrow weeping in despair; today all humble and meek, tomorrow proud and furious. In a word, the sinner changes as the prosperous or adverse things that happen to him change. But the just man is like the sun, always the same, always serene in everything that happens. In the lower part of the soul he cannot but feel some pain at the contrary things that befall him; but as long as he keeps his will united to the will of God, no one can deprive him of that spiritual joy which is not subject to the changes of this present life: “Your joy no man shall take from you” (John 16:22).
11. He that reposes in the divine will is like a man standing above the clouds: he sees and hears the lightning, the thunder, and the tempests raging below, but none of these reaches him, to injure or disturb him. And how could he ever be disturbed, when what he wishes always comes to pass? He that wishes nothing but what pleases God always obtains whatever he wishes, because all that happens, happens by the will of God. Resigned persons, says Salvian, if they are of low condition, wish to be so; if they suffer poverty, they wish to be poor: in a word, because they wish all that God wishes, they are therefore always content. Humiles sunt, hoc volunt, pauperes sunt, paupertate delectantur: itaque beati dicendi sunt—“They are humble, and they wish to be so; they are poor, and they delight in poverty: therefore they are to be called blessed.”
If cold, or heat, or rain, or wind comes, he that is united to the will of God says: I wish for this cold, this heat; I wish it to rain, to be windy, because God wills it so. If some loss comes, or persecution, or sickness, or even death, he says: I wish for this loss, this persecution, this sickness; I wish even for death, when it comes, because God wills it so. And what greater happiness can a person have who seeks to please God than to embrace in peace the cross that God sends him, knowing that by embracing it in peace he gives God the greatest pleasure he can give him? So great was the joy that St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi felt within her at the mere mention of the will of God, that she would go out of herself and fall into ecstasy.
12. On the other hand, what folly is theirs who resist the will of God, and, instead of receiving tribulations with patience, rage and storm against God, treating him as unjust or cruel! Do they think that by resisting the divine will what God wills shall not come to pass? “Who resisteth his will?” (Rom. 9:19). Wretched men! By their impatience do they lessen the cross that God sends them? No—they make it heavier, they double its pain. “Who hath resisted him, and hath peace?” (Job 9:4). What folly! Let us resign ourselves to the divine will, and thus we shall make our cross lighter, and shall gain great merits for eternal life.
This is what God intends when he sends us tribulation: he intends to see us made saints. “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). He does not send us crosses because he wishes us ill, but because he wishes us well, and sees that they are good for our salvation. “All things work together unto good” (Rom. 8:28). Even chastisements come to us from God not for our ruin but for our good, that we may amend our faults: “Let us believe that these scourges of the Lord… have happened for our amendment, and not for our destruction” (Jdt. 8:27). The Lord loves us so much that he not only desires our good but is anxious for it. “The Lord,” said David, “is careful for me” (Ps. 39:18).
13. Let us, then, always abandon ourselves into the hands of that God who so greatly desires and so carefully watches over our eternal salvation. “Casting all your care upon him; for he hath care of you” (1 Pet. 5:7). He who lives abandoned into the hands of God will lead a contented life and die a holy death. He who dies wholly resigned to the divine will dies a saint. But he who in life has not been united to the will of God will not be so at death either, and will not be saved.
This, then, must be the aim of all our thoughts in the life that remains to us: to fulfill the will of God. To this end we should direct all our devotions—our meditations, our communions, our visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and all our prayers—always begging God to teach us and make us do his will. “Teach me to do thy will” (Ps. 142:10). And at the same time let us offer ourselves to accept without reserve whatever he ordains for us, praying with the Apostle: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Lord, tell me what you would have me do, for I wish to do it all. And in all things, then, whether pleasant or painful, let us always keep on our lips that petition of the Pater Noster—“Thy will be done”—repeating it often, and with affection of heart, many times a day. Happy we, if we live and end our lives saying: “Thy will be done, thy will be done!”
Points for Reflection
1. “He that gives his will to God gives him everything he has” (§4)
2. “A single blessed be God in adversity is worth more than six thousand thanksgivings in the things that delight us” (§6)
3. “Let us always abandon ourselves into the hands of that God who so greatly desires and so carefully watches over our eternal salvation” (§13)