Abandonment in God’s Will
Doing God’s Will
We must inevitably suffer trials and sufferings in this life that require the assistance of the virtue of patience to keep us strong and firm lest we yield to discouragement and sorrow. Many souls lose the merit of their trials and sufferings because they fail to exercise the virtue of patience. They suffer even more than they would have because of their lack of conformity to the will of God.
***
Patience is not only a moral virtue; it is also a Christian–supernatural–virtue. As such, it proceeds from God (cf. Ps 61:6), and is intimately related to the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
A person who has to undertake a prolonged, intense effort needs special help from God, or else he will end up tired. He needs to exercise the virtue of faith, because he knows that God will grant that help; hope, with the absolute confidence that God wants what he is doing; and charity, which makes him persevere in his petition, identified with God’s will.
***
The Lord spoke of the last days (Lk 21:12‑19). He also predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, which came to pass some forty years later. His Second Coming will be “in power and great glory.” Until then, all must suffer. Jesus warned his disciples of the impending persecution and exhorted his followers to persevere, no matter what should happen. “By your patience you will gain your lives”–In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras.
In the years that followed, the Apostles meditated on the Lord’s warning: “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (Jn 15:20).
Even the worst tribulation has a role to play in God’s providence. God permits trials because they can be the cause of greater goods. For example, the early Roman persecutions strengthened the primitive Church and deepened her supernatural spirit. This was to fulfil the Lord’s prediction: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
***
You feel happier. But this time it is a giddy sort of happiness, a bit impatient. With it comes the clear feeling that something is being wrested from you as a sacrifice.
Listen to me carefully; here on earth there is no perfect happiness. That is why, now, immediately, without complaining or feeling a victim, you should offer yourself as an oblation to God, with total and absolute self-surrender. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, 71)
***
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls1 are ever before me” (Is 49:15-16).
It is as if the prophet had said: “I carry you in my hands and I keep you ever before my eyes to shelter and defend you.”
The same prophet said, “I bear you within my womb” (Is 46:3). As a woman carries her baby within her womb, which serves for the baby’s house, litter, wall, support, and all things, thus God keeps us.
A Christian lives in such confidence and feels himself so well provided for in all things that he is never troubled or disturbed by whatever happens.
***
You told me: “Father, I am having a very rough time.”
In answer I whispered in your ear: “Take upon your shoulders a small part of that cross, just a tiny part. And if you can’t manage that then ... leave it entirely on the strong shoulders of Christ. And from this moment on, repeat with me:
My Lord and my God: Into your hands I abandon the past, and the present, and the future, what is small and what is great, what amounts to a little and what amounts to a lot, things temporal and things eternal.
Then, don’t worry any more. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, 7th, 3)
Patience Calls for Supernatural Outlook
Supernatural outlook is the source of our patience; and our patience results in serenity, inner peace, and joy.
***
The conviction that God knows what he is doing and that he does it for our good makes us impervious to the disappointments and distress of those who look at things with a purely human outlook. Even more, this conviction makes us feel joy and gladness on all occasions. The more confident this conviction is, the more abundant the joy.
***
Natural–purely human–outlook makes us consider things limited to the natural sphere, without any consideration of the world of grace, without any consideration of anything higher than what we see. Supernatural outlook, on the contrary, relates everything to God’s plans, and puts into practice the knowledge of God’s will which wishes, permits, or disposes everything that happens in the universe.
If man is always aware of the will of God not as something dead or indifferent to the things that happen, but as an active force in the world, then he can look beyond himself and not despair or become depressed when seeming catastrophes strike him.
“Perhaps the best way to picture the whole process is to visualize God, not merely creating the beginning of the world, and leaving it, so to speak, to work out its own destiny, but rather choosing this particular world with its complete history right down to the very end, after examining every single action of every single creature in full detail and in all its consequences, comparing this possible history and sequence with all other possible ones, and finally deciding to create this particular scheme of things in which this particular event and all its consequences occur.”2 (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
An example will help to clarify the difference between natural and supernatural outlook. Let us imagine for a moment that during a game of chess suddenly each piece acquires a degree of intelligence proportionate to its importance and the way in which the rules allow it to move: the queen first, then the rooks and the bishops, all the way down to the pawns.
One of the players moves a pawn one space forward which leaves the king unprotected, prevents the queen from moving, and leaves the pawn itself unprotected. This pawn, with its tiny intelligence and short sight, which barely sees beyond its own square, would think that such a move was ridiculous; if it were capable of feeling it would be upset, irritated, impatient, and unhappy.
The poor pawn does not realize that the player sees not only him but all the other pieces, his own and his opponent’s, and, besides, is thinking of several moves ahead. With its narrow and limited intelligence, the pawn does not know that this move which he considers disastrous is indispensable for a checkmate that will come ten moves later.
We are like the pawns in an exciting game of chess, whose chess board is the universe and whose pieces are innumerable. God is the player, the One who foresees the movements of all the pieces; and he always wins, although to our poor pawn’s intelligence it may seem that he slips up and makes disastrous moves. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
We have a human outlook when we forget that we are pawns, when we forget that behind all those things which annoy and irritate us, which make us impatient, upset, depressed, which discourage us or fill us with a disorderly optimism, there is something which gives them a definite purpose. Just as a purely human outlook results in our becoming irritated and disgusted with the way life treats us, supernatural outlook leads to serenity and hope, for “we know that to them that love God all things work together for good” (Rom 8:28).
This supernatural vision provides us with shelter from disturbing anxieties; it keeps us well balanced and objective as between exaltation and dejection, armed with an interior calm that remains unruffled even in the presence of our own or our neighbor’s miseries. As Blessed Josemaría Escrivá has put it: “We must not forget that for a child of God over and above the raging storm there is a sun that shines brightly, and beneath the pounding and devastating waves there is a prevailing stillness and calm.”
Now then, we need faith in order to see beyond the superficial appearances of things, faith in God and in the word of God. Supernatural outlook is simply living our faith every day in the most insignificant details of our existence. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
The most subtle danger to the soul that this world presents is not so much in the clear-cut mortal sin of completely and consciously turning away from God; but it is the surreptitious infiltration of a false humanism whose content and limits take no account of any supernatural reality. The persons imbued with this false humanism seek the enjoyment of earthly goods–however moderately–as if they were goals achieved, treating them, consciously or unconsciously, as ends in themselves.
There is no Christianity without the Cross. Mortification, either willingly accepted when God sends it or undertaken voluntarily, is the normal proof that our belief in Christ is something alive and real and not merely theoretical knowledge. As we are taught in our Catechism, the mark of a Christian is the sign of the Cross, and this expression is not to be limited to the mere external sign.
This does not mean, however, that a Christian should lead a life of bitterness. On the contrary, if there is anything in the world that gives man a genuine joy of living, it is the gospel of Christ, the fact of being Christian. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
“Near the cross of Jesus stood [stabat] his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (Jn 19:25)
The stabat of this Mother, while she tasted drop by drop the chalice of a never-equalled sorrow, would have been an ideal subject for an ancient Greek tragedy. Sorrow would have been immortalized in the mother, standing beside her dying Son bleeding in agony on the Cross, dark clouds gathering around her, with no hope of consolation, and humiliated by the sarcasm and contempt of her enemies celebrating their triumph.
But no Greek tragedy was written, there was no declamation, no chorus; nothing but the dry, brief words of a few men who gave testimony of what happened. Before Christ there was tragedy because Destiny ruled. After Christ tragedy is impossible because He has revealed to us the Will of the Father.
Tragedy is possible only where faith in a paternal God is supplanted by the sense of an implacable fatalism that man is abandoned to the caprices of a cruel fate, indifferent to human sufferings. All the hardness and cruelty usually associated with the word “Destiny” come precisely from its dissociation from faith in God, because destiny is the pagan term for God’s plan and is the consequence of man’s rebellion against the divine will. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
One cannot speak of the tragedy of Calvary because there can be no tragedy in relation to Jesus and Mary. The fulfillment of God’s will can never be “tragic.” Tragedy supposes a blind and cruel fate that preys on man and oppresses him; a fate that never understands him and is indifferent to his suffering. A Christian, therefore, can never feel that he is a victim of fate, provided that he is genuinely Christian; that is, for him there is no such thing as Destiny. If he is united to Christ and participates in his life, then he is not the object of blind Destiny, but of intelligent Destiny. There can be no blind fate, but God’s loving and paternal care.
On the other hand, when man cuts himself off from Christ, when he rejects the light, then he remains blind and gropes in darkness. He understands nothing; he finds himself whirled about by unknown forces in the face of which he does not know what to do; he is left a prisoner of his own helplessness. Then, indeed, he creates his own tragedy. Since Christ, a tragic fate is possible only for those who choose it by rebelling against God. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
There is a remedy for your anxieties: Have patience, rectitude of intention, and look at things with a supernatural perspective. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, 853)
***
Our existence on earth, with its enterprises and its toils, is given us by God to be used for the transforming of our souls, and not for the flattering of our inordinate desires of excellence.
A Christian knows that things are all wrong not when he cannot have his own way with them, but when God cannot have His way with him. We are not meant to mold persons and events to our will, bur rather to be molded by God and to mold the world according to the form preordained for it by God.
***
Life’s purpose is to purify us, not to gratify us.
Existence is not a toy that we can use or abuse at our caprice, but a mill of God, in which everything in our souls that proves an obstacle to the supernatural life is ground into dust.
Serenity: Fruit of Abandonment in God’s Will
“Stages: to be resigned to God’s will, to conform to God’s will, to want God’s will, to love God’s will.”3 This is a program for sanctity.
We should not think that accepting God’s will is something bad but unavoidable. No. God is our loving Father who only wants the best for us, what is most appropriate for us, what will really make us happy. Thus, we should love God’s will.
***
St. Josemaría Escrivá tells us: “Be happy when you are mistreated and dishonored. Many people shout against you. It has become fashionable to spit upon you. You are like garbage–omnium peripsema (cf. 1 Cor 4:13).
“It is hard, very hard. It is difficult, until a man finally goes to the tabernacle and sees himself considered as the world’s filth, like a poor worm, and truly says, ‘Lord, if you do not need my honor, why shall I want it?’ Until then, a son of God does not know what it is to be happy. Not until he achieves that nakedness and self-surrender that springs from love and is based on mortification and on suffering.”
The source of all true joy is our unconditional identification with what the Lord wants for us.
***
Among the things that Christ our Redeemer taught us, one of the most important was that we should have an entire conformity with the will of God in all things. He taught us that in words and in deeds. Instructing us how to pray, he set down one of the principal petitions: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). He confirmed this teaching with his example: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me: (Jn 6:38).
When he was about to accomplish the work of our Redemption, that Holy Thursday, Jesus prayed in Gethsemani; his human will, body, and sensible faculties shrank from the prospect of the impending death. He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me” (Mt 26:42). Yet his human will was always ready to accept whatever his Father would send him. Thus, he added, “Yet not my will, but thine be done.”
To go to the root of the matter, we must take into account two brief but substantial principles. The first is that we will advance in sanctity in so far we accept wholeheartedly God’s will. The greater this conformity, the greater our holiness will be.
We must accept what God accepts, and reject what he rejects. As a pagan philosopher said, “To have the same I will and I will not with the person you love; that is true friendship.”4 Thus, the more identified with and united to the will of God a man is, the better he will be.
There is nothing better or more perfect than the will of God. Thus, the more a man seeks to conform himself to the will of God, the better and more perfect he will be. If God is the most perfect being, the more perfect any other being will be, the more it is assimilated and made like God. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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The second fundamental principle is that–excluding sin–nothing can happen or come about in this world but by the will and command of God. We exclude sins because God cannot be the cause or author of these; as it is impossible for fire to freeze, or for the sun to darken, so it is infinitely more against the goodness of God to love evil.
God governs the world through secondary causes, yet nothing is done but by the will of God who governs the universe. Nothing comes by chance in respect to God; all is foreseen, registered, and sorted out by his hands. He knows you completely; he counts all the hairs of your head; not one shall fall but by his will.
From men’s point of view, some things happen by chance because they neither intended nor thought of them. But from God’s point of view, things do not happen by chance, but by his knowledge and will, because he had ordained them so, for secret and hidden ends known only to himself.
And this is the conclusion we should draw from these two principles: Since all that happens, happens with God’s consent; since all our perfection consists in conforming ourselves to his will, we should take all things as coming from God’s hands, accepting and loving his most holy will.
We must not take anything as coming by chance or by the machinations and contrivance of men, for that is what usually gives us so much pain and annoyance. We must not think that this or that came on you because so-and-so managed it, and if it had not been for this or that, things would have gone much better. Whatsoever way or roundabout process they come, it always God who sends them; he uses them to accomplish his plan of salvation. One father of the desert used to say that a man could not find true repose in this life until he reckons that there is only God and himself in the world.
Taking all things as coming from God, however small they are and in whatever manner they come, a man keeps himself in peace and quiet and lives a heavenly life on earth. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
***
Afflictions and penal evils come from the hand of God. It would not be necessary to insist on this truth, were it not for the obscurity that the devil cunningly tries to throw on it.
From the above stated truth that “God is not the cause or author of sin,” the devil draws a false conclusion. He admits that evils that come our way by natural causes or irrational creatures, like sickness, hunger, and barrenness, come from the hand of God. There is no sin in these elements. But–the devil makes us believe–the evil and affliction that comes about by the fault of a man who wounds me, robs me, or insults me does not come from the hand of God nor is guided by his providence; it comes solely from the malice of another man.
This is a very great error.
St Dorotheus says, “There are some who, when another person says a word against them or harm them, forget about God and turn all their rage against their closest neighbor. They are like dogs that bite the stone thrown at them, not looking at or taking into account the hand that threw it. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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“Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mt 5:9).
St Augustine comments on this passage saying that our Redeemer calls the peace makers “blessed” and “children of God” because there is nothing in them that resists the will of God. The sowers of peace conform in all things to God’s will like good sons, who seek to be in everything like their Father, identifying their will with their Father’s will.
***
God deals with us as a natural father would do. When a father has to correct a son, he takes a stick–even though he finds it hard to do–and corrects his son with it. Then he casts the stick into the fire, and keeps his love and gifts for the son. In the same manner God uses wicked men as an instrument and scourge to correct the good.
It is said that when the barbarian Alaric was going to sack and destroy Rome, a venerable monk begged him not to be the cause of so many calamities which, in fact, happened. Alaric replied, “I am not going to Rome by my own determination, but some person torments me from within every day, saying, ‘Go to Rome and destroy the city.’“ The Lord took him as the instrument of his punishment; we must recognize men as instruments of divine justice and providence. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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The root and principle of our peace is to accept God’s will. In this way a man places himself in the hands of God, like clay in the potter’s hands. Thus, a man no longer labors for himself, but does everything for God. He desires nothing but to fulfil God’s will, both in prosperity and consolation as in adversity and affliction.
***
There is a very dangerous kind of impatience: that of a man who wants to choose what he has to suffer. He says that such and such things are not proper for his salvation, and that he cannot bear what God is sending him.
Everybody should persuade himself and trust that what God sends him is what fits him; hence, he will take it with patience, conforming his will with God’s will.
You are not to choose the hardships or temptations that you are to undergo, but take as from the hand of God what he sends you; that is what befits you.
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When patience is abandoned, all the good already done is ruined. With patience, unity is preserved. (St Gregory the Great, Book of Pastoral Care, III, 9)
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Oh, patience, how I wish to glorify you for being queen of all things we do!...You begin being our daily crown, and you end the mother of martyrs. You are the rampart of our faith, the fruit of our hope, the friend of our charity... Happy, eternally happy, is he who carries you as companion. (St Zeno, Works, PL 11,317)
Footnotes:
1 Referring to Zion’s walls.
2 Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, 2, 16.
3 St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 774
4 Eadem velle et eadem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est.
We must inevitably suffer trials and sufferings in this life that require the assistance of the virtue of patience to keep us strong and firm lest we yield to discouragement and sorrow. Many souls lose the merit of their trials and sufferings because they fail to exercise the virtue of patience. They suffer even more than they would have because of their lack of conformity to the will of God.
***
Patience is not only a moral virtue; it is also a Christian–supernatural–virtue. As such, it proceeds from God (cf. Ps 61:6), and is intimately related to the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
A person who has to undertake a prolonged, intense effort needs special help from God, or else he will end up tired. He needs to exercise the virtue of faith, because he knows that God will grant that help; hope, with the absolute confidence that God wants what he is doing; and charity, which makes him persevere in his petition, identified with God’s will.
***
The Lord spoke of the last days (Lk 21:12‑19). He also predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, which came to pass some forty years later. His Second Coming will be “in power and great glory.” Until then, all must suffer. Jesus warned his disciples of the impending persecution and exhorted his followers to persevere, no matter what should happen. “By your patience you will gain your lives”–In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras.
In the years that followed, the Apostles meditated on the Lord’s warning: “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (Jn 15:20).
Even the worst tribulation has a role to play in God’s providence. God permits trials because they can be the cause of greater goods. For example, the early Roman persecutions strengthened the primitive Church and deepened her supernatural spirit. This was to fulfil the Lord’s prediction: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
***
You feel happier. But this time it is a giddy sort of happiness, a bit impatient. With it comes the clear feeling that something is being wrested from you as a sacrifice.
Listen to me carefully; here on earth there is no perfect happiness. That is why, now, immediately, without complaining or feeling a victim, you should offer yourself as an oblation to God, with total and absolute self-surrender. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, 71)
***
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls1 are ever before me” (Is 49:15-16).
It is as if the prophet had said: “I carry you in my hands and I keep you ever before my eyes to shelter and defend you.”
The same prophet said, “I bear you within my womb” (Is 46:3). As a woman carries her baby within her womb, which serves for the baby’s house, litter, wall, support, and all things, thus God keeps us.
A Christian lives in such confidence and feels himself so well provided for in all things that he is never troubled or disturbed by whatever happens.
***
You told me: “Father, I am having a very rough time.”
In answer I whispered in your ear: “Take upon your shoulders a small part of that cross, just a tiny part. And if you can’t manage that then ... leave it entirely on the strong shoulders of Christ. And from this moment on, repeat with me:
My Lord and my God: Into your hands I abandon the past, and the present, and the future, what is small and what is great, what amounts to a little and what amounts to a lot, things temporal and things eternal.
Then, don’t worry any more. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, 7th, 3)
Patience Calls for Supernatural Outlook
Supernatural outlook is the source of our patience; and our patience results in serenity, inner peace, and joy.
***
The conviction that God knows what he is doing and that he does it for our good makes us impervious to the disappointments and distress of those who look at things with a purely human outlook. Even more, this conviction makes us feel joy and gladness on all occasions. The more confident this conviction is, the more abundant the joy.
***
Natural–purely human–outlook makes us consider things limited to the natural sphere, without any consideration of the world of grace, without any consideration of anything higher than what we see. Supernatural outlook, on the contrary, relates everything to God’s plans, and puts into practice the knowledge of God’s will which wishes, permits, or disposes everything that happens in the universe.
If man is always aware of the will of God not as something dead or indifferent to the things that happen, but as an active force in the world, then he can look beyond himself and not despair or become depressed when seeming catastrophes strike him.
“Perhaps the best way to picture the whole process is to visualize God, not merely creating the beginning of the world, and leaving it, so to speak, to work out its own destiny, but rather choosing this particular world with its complete history right down to the very end, after examining every single action of every single creature in full detail and in all its consequences, comparing this possible history and sequence with all other possible ones, and finally deciding to create this particular scheme of things in which this particular event and all its consequences occur.”2 (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
An example will help to clarify the difference between natural and supernatural outlook. Let us imagine for a moment that during a game of chess suddenly each piece acquires a degree of intelligence proportionate to its importance and the way in which the rules allow it to move: the queen first, then the rooks and the bishops, all the way down to the pawns.
One of the players moves a pawn one space forward which leaves the king unprotected, prevents the queen from moving, and leaves the pawn itself unprotected. This pawn, with its tiny intelligence and short sight, which barely sees beyond its own square, would think that such a move was ridiculous; if it were capable of feeling it would be upset, irritated, impatient, and unhappy.
The poor pawn does not realize that the player sees not only him but all the other pieces, his own and his opponent’s, and, besides, is thinking of several moves ahead. With its narrow and limited intelligence, the pawn does not know that this move which he considers disastrous is indispensable for a checkmate that will come ten moves later.
We are like the pawns in an exciting game of chess, whose chess board is the universe and whose pieces are innumerable. God is the player, the One who foresees the movements of all the pieces; and he always wins, although to our poor pawn’s intelligence it may seem that he slips up and makes disastrous moves. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
We have a human outlook when we forget that we are pawns, when we forget that behind all those things which annoy and irritate us, which make us impatient, upset, depressed, which discourage us or fill us with a disorderly optimism, there is something which gives them a definite purpose. Just as a purely human outlook results in our becoming irritated and disgusted with the way life treats us, supernatural outlook leads to serenity and hope, for “we know that to them that love God all things work together for good” (Rom 8:28).
This supernatural vision provides us with shelter from disturbing anxieties; it keeps us well balanced and objective as between exaltation and dejection, armed with an interior calm that remains unruffled even in the presence of our own or our neighbor’s miseries. As Blessed Josemaría Escrivá has put it: “We must not forget that for a child of God over and above the raging storm there is a sun that shines brightly, and beneath the pounding and devastating waves there is a prevailing stillness and calm.”
Now then, we need faith in order to see beyond the superficial appearances of things, faith in God and in the word of God. Supernatural outlook is simply living our faith every day in the most insignificant details of our existence. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
The most subtle danger to the soul that this world presents is not so much in the clear-cut mortal sin of completely and consciously turning away from God; but it is the surreptitious infiltration of a false humanism whose content and limits take no account of any supernatural reality. The persons imbued with this false humanism seek the enjoyment of earthly goods–however moderately–as if they were goals achieved, treating them, consciously or unconsciously, as ends in themselves.
There is no Christianity without the Cross. Mortification, either willingly accepted when God sends it or undertaken voluntarily, is the normal proof that our belief in Christ is something alive and real and not merely theoretical knowledge. As we are taught in our Catechism, the mark of a Christian is the sign of the Cross, and this expression is not to be limited to the mere external sign.
This does not mean, however, that a Christian should lead a life of bitterness. On the contrary, if there is anything in the world that gives man a genuine joy of living, it is the gospel of Christ, the fact of being Christian. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
“Near the cross of Jesus stood [stabat] his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (Jn 19:25)
The stabat of this Mother, while she tasted drop by drop the chalice of a never-equalled sorrow, would have been an ideal subject for an ancient Greek tragedy. Sorrow would have been immortalized in the mother, standing beside her dying Son bleeding in agony on the Cross, dark clouds gathering around her, with no hope of consolation, and humiliated by the sarcasm and contempt of her enemies celebrating their triumph.
But no Greek tragedy was written, there was no declamation, no chorus; nothing but the dry, brief words of a few men who gave testimony of what happened. Before Christ there was tragedy because Destiny ruled. After Christ tragedy is impossible because He has revealed to us the Will of the Father.
Tragedy is possible only where faith in a paternal God is supplanted by the sense of an implacable fatalism that man is abandoned to the caprices of a cruel fate, indifferent to human sufferings. All the hardness and cruelty usually associated with the word “Destiny” come precisely from its dissociation from faith in God, because destiny is the pagan term for God’s plan and is the consequence of man’s rebellion against the divine will. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
One cannot speak of the tragedy of Calvary because there can be no tragedy in relation to Jesus and Mary. The fulfillment of God’s will can never be “tragic.” Tragedy supposes a blind and cruel fate that preys on man and oppresses him; a fate that never understands him and is indifferent to his suffering. A Christian, therefore, can never feel that he is a victim of fate, provided that he is genuinely Christian; that is, for him there is no such thing as Destiny. If he is united to Christ and participates in his life, then he is not the object of blind Destiny, but of intelligent Destiny. There can be no blind fate, but God’s loving and paternal care.
On the other hand, when man cuts himself off from Christ, when he rejects the light, then he remains blind and gropes in darkness. He understands nothing; he finds himself whirled about by unknown forces in the face of which he does not know what to do; he is left a prisoner of his own helplessness. Then, indeed, he creates his own tragedy. Since Christ, a tragic fate is possible only for those who choose it by rebelling against God. (F. Suárez, Mary of Nazareth)
***
There is a remedy for your anxieties: Have patience, rectitude of intention, and look at things with a supernatural perspective. (St. Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, 853)
***
Our existence on earth, with its enterprises and its toils, is given us by God to be used for the transforming of our souls, and not for the flattering of our inordinate desires of excellence.
A Christian knows that things are all wrong not when he cannot have his own way with them, but when God cannot have His way with him. We are not meant to mold persons and events to our will, bur rather to be molded by God and to mold the world according to the form preordained for it by God.
***
Life’s purpose is to purify us, not to gratify us.
Existence is not a toy that we can use or abuse at our caprice, but a mill of God, in which everything in our souls that proves an obstacle to the supernatural life is ground into dust.
Serenity: Fruit of Abandonment in God’s Will
“Stages: to be resigned to God’s will, to conform to God’s will, to want God’s will, to love God’s will.”3 This is a program for sanctity.
We should not think that accepting God’s will is something bad but unavoidable. No. God is our loving Father who only wants the best for us, what is most appropriate for us, what will really make us happy. Thus, we should love God’s will.
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St. Josemaría Escrivá tells us: “Be happy when you are mistreated and dishonored. Many people shout against you. It has become fashionable to spit upon you. You are like garbage–omnium peripsema (cf. 1 Cor 4:13).
“It is hard, very hard. It is difficult, until a man finally goes to the tabernacle and sees himself considered as the world’s filth, like a poor worm, and truly says, ‘Lord, if you do not need my honor, why shall I want it?’ Until then, a son of God does not know what it is to be happy. Not until he achieves that nakedness and self-surrender that springs from love and is based on mortification and on suffering.”
The source of all true joy is our unconditional identification with what the Lord wants for us.
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Among the things that Christ our Redeemer taught us, one of the most important was that we should have an entire conformity with the will of God in all things. He taught us that in words and in deeds. Instructing us how to pray, he set down one of the principal petitions: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). He confirmed this teaching with his example: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me: (Jn 6:38).
When he was about to accomplish the work of our Redemption, that Holy Thursday, Jesus prayed in Gethsemani; his human will, body, and sensible faculties shrank from the prospect of the impending death. He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me” (Mt 26:42). Yet his human will was always ready to accept whatever his Father would send him. Thus, he added, “Yet not my will, but thine be done.”
To go to the root of the matter, we must take into account two brief but substantial principles. The first is that we will advance in sanctity in so far we accept wholeheartedly God’s will. The greater this conformity, the greater our holiness will be.
We must accept what God accepts, and reject what he rejects. As a pagan philosopher said, “To have the same I will and I will not with the person you love; that is true friendship.”4 Thus, the more identified with and united to the will of God a man is, the better he will be.
There is nothing better or more perfect than the will of God. Thus, the more a man seeks to conform himself to the will of God, the better and more perfect he will be. If God is the most perfect being, the more perfect any other being will be, the more it is assimilated and made like God. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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The second fundamental principle is that–excluding sin–nothing can happen or come about in this world but by the will and command of God. We exclude sins because God cannot be the cause or author of these; as it is impossible for fire to freeze, or for the sun to darken, so it is infinitely more against the goodness of God to love evil.
God governs the world through secondary causes, yet nothing is done but by the will of God who governs the universe. Nothing comes by chance in respect to God; all is foreseen, registered, and sorted out by his hands. He knows you completely; he counts all the hairs of your head; not one shall fall but by his will.
From men’s point of view, some things happen by chance because they neither intended nor thought of them. But from God’s point of view, things do not happen by chance, but by his knowledge and will, because he had ordained them so, for secret and hidden ends known only to himself.
And this is the conclusion we should draw from these two principles: Since all that happens, happens with God’s consent; since all our perfection consists in conforming ourselves to his will, we should take all things as coming from God’s hands, accepting and loving his most holy will.
We must not take anything as coming by chance or by the machinations and contrivance of men, for that is what usually gives us so much pain and annoyance. We must not think that this or that came on you because so-and-so managed it, and if it had not been for this or that, things would have gone much better. Whatsoever way or roundabout process they come, it always God who sends them; he uses them to accomplish his plan of salvation. One father of the desert used to say that a man could not find true repose in this life until he reckons that there is only God and himself in the world.
Taking all things as coming from God, however small they are and in whatever manner they come, a man keeps himself in peace and quiet and lives a heavenly life on earth. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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Afflictions and penal evils come from the hand of God. It would not be necessary to insist on this truth, were it not for the obscurity that the devil cunningly tries to throw on it.
From the above stated truth that “God is not the cause or author of sin,” the devil draws a false conclusion. He admits that evils that come our way by natural causes or irrational creatures, like sickness, hunger, and barrenness, come from the hand of God. There is no sin in these elements. But–the devil makes us believe–the evil and affliction that comes about by the fault of a man who wounds me, robs me, or insults me does not come from the hand of God nor is guided by his providence; it comes solely from the malice of another man.
This is a very great error.
St Dorotheus says, “There are some who, when another person says a word against them or harm them, forget about God and turn all their rage against their closest neighbor. They are like dogs that bite the stone thrown at them, not looking at or taking into account the hand that threw it. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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“Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mt 5:9).
St Augustine comments on this passage saying that our Redeemer calls the peace makers “blessed” and “children of God” because there is nothing in them that resists the will of God. The sowers of peace conform in all things to God’s will like good sons, who seek to be in everything like their Father, identifying their will with their Father’s will.
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God deals with us as a natural father would do. When a father has to correct a son, he takes a stick–even though he finds it hard to do–and corrects his son with it. Then he casts the stick into the fire, and keeps his love and gifts for the son. In the same manner God uses wicked men as an instrument and scourge to correct the good.
It is said that when the barbarian Alaric was going to sack and destroy Rome, a venerable monk begged him not to be the cause of so many calamities which, in fact, happened. Alaric replied, “I am not going to Rome by my own determination, but some person torments me from within every day, saying, ‘Go to Rome and destroy the city.’“ The Lord took him as the instrument of his punishment; we must recognize men as instruments of divine justice and providence. (A. Rodríguez, Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues)
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The root and principle of our peace is to accept God’s will. In this way a man places himself in the hands of God, like clay in the potter’s hands. Thus, a man no longer labors for himself, but does everything for God. He desires nothing but to fulfil God’s will, both in prosperity and consolation as in adversity and affliction.
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There is a very dangerous kind of impatience: that of a man who wants to choose what he has to suffer. He says that such and such things are not proper for his salvation, and that he cannot bear what God is sending him.
Everybody should persuade himself and trust that what God sends him is what fits him; hence, he will take it with patience, conforming his will with God’s will.
You are not to choose the hardships or temptations that you are to undergo, but take as from the hand of God what he sends you; that is what befits you.
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When patience is abandoned, all the good already done is ruined. With patience, unity is preserved. (St Gregory the Great, Book of Pastoral Care, III, 9)
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Oh, patience, how I wish to glorify you for being queen of all things we do!...You begin being our daily crown, and you end the mother of martyrs. You are the rampart of our faith, the fruit of our hope, the friend of our charity... Happy, eternally happy, is he who carries you as companion. (St Zeno, Works, PL 11,317)
Footnotes:
1 Referring to Zion’s walls.
2 Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, 2, 16.
3 St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 774
4 Eadem velle et eadem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est.