Dominica XIX post Pentecosten - Spiritual Life (Conformity to the Divine Will)

PRESENTATION: Conformity to God’s Will

As we saw last week, knowledge of God not only unites our mind with that of God, but it also leads to love because everything about God is loveable. By showing us the need we have of God, the knowledge of self makes us ardently long for Him and throws us into His arms.

Conformity to the divine will, however, unites us even more intimately and directly to Him, Who is the source of all perfection. In fact, it subordinates and unites our will to God, placing it at the service of the Sovereign Master. It may be said that our degree of perfection corresponds to the extent to which we conform our will to God’s.

St. Bernard distinguishes three degrees of this conformity, that of the beginner, the one who has already made some progress on the road to perfection, and the perfect soul.

Beginners, usually moved more by fear of God, tend to seek escape from sufferings or pains, but they usually choose to suffer rather than to offend God, and though groaning under the weight of the Cross, they merely endure it with patience and resignation.

Those who have already made some progress are sustained by hope and the desire of heavenly things. While they still do not seek the Cross, they willingly carry it with joy, knowing that each new pang represents an additional degree of glory.

The perfect, led by love, go further. To glorify the God they love, to become more like our Lord, they go out to meet the Cross; they long for it and embrace it lovingly, not because it is loveable in itself, but because it offers them the means of proving their love for God and for Christ. Like the Apostles, they rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name of Jesus. Like St. Paul, they rejoice in their tribulations.

EXPLANATION: Obedience and Submission to God’s Will

When we talk about Conformity to God’s Will, the first thing we must remember is that theologians speak of two forms of God’s Will, His signified will and His permissive will, also known as His will of good pleasure.

We must conform ourselves to both, but that means different things. To God’s signified will, we must be obedient; to God’s will of good pleasure, we must be submissive.

Put simply, conformity to God’s signified will consists in willing all that God manifests to us of His intentions. The will of God, according to St. Francis de Sales, is manifested in four ways: the commandments of God and of the Church, the counsels, the inspirations of grace, and for Religious, in their Constitutions and Rules (we will, for obvious reasons, omit the last one from our consideration today).

God is our Sovereign Lord and has the right to give us commands. Since He is infinitely wise and good, He commands nothing that is not conducive to His glory and our own happiness. We must then willingly and unquestioningly submit ourselves to His laws: the natural law, the divine positive law, ecclesiastical law, and just civil laws.

As St. Paul reminds us, all lawful authority comes from God, and to obey Superiors within the limits of their authority, is to obey God Himself, just as to resist them would be to resist God.

Duties of our state in life also fall under the category of commandments; they are incumbent upon us by reason of our vocation and the offices God has confided to us. Sanctification is impossible without the observance of the commandments and the fulfillment of our duties of state.

The second category of counsels is, in and of itself, not necessary for salvation, as the commandments are, but we should seek to perform good works (that are consistent with our state of life) over and above the strict requirements of the law if we truly desire perfection.

We can say the same of the inspirations of grace when they are clear and submitted to our spiritual director, but with discretion and the advice of our director, anyone seeking perfection ought to lend a ready ear to the voice of the Holy Ghost speaking within the soul and comply without delay.

Turning to submission to God’s will of good pleasure, this conformity consists in submitting oneself to all providential events willed or allowed by God for our own greater good and sanctification.

Nothing happens without God’s order or permission, and God, being infinite perfection and goodness, cannot will or permit anything which is not for the good of souls.

This requires us to take a supernatural point of view in all things. If we look only at the present life and its earthly happiness, then we will never understand the designs of God, Who has willed that we undergo trials here below in order to reward us in Heaven.

It is our duty, then, to submit ourselves to God in all the events of life, happy or unhappy, in the midst of public calamities or private ills, whether we are lashed by the hand of nature or gripped by want and suffering, in sorrows and joys, in the unequal distribution of gifts both natural and supernatural, in failure or success, in desolation or in consolation, in sickness or in health, in life or in death.

The duty of submission under trial to the good pleasure of God is a duty of justice and obedience, but it is a duty urged by our own interest because God’s will merely puts us to the test so that we may be exercised in virtue and acquire merit. It is a duty imposed, above all, by love, giving the gift of ourselves even to complete sacrifice.

For those who are still on the road to perfection in love, two things need to be kept in mind so that we do not mistakenly overburden ourselves unnecessarily.

First, we should not aggravate our sufferings, for example, by calling to mind all of our ills, past, present, and to come, so that the weight breaks us. Never give past wounds a thought unless it is to note the profit we derived from them at the time.

Second, when we suffer, we should reflect upon the great advantages of suffering because it is both a teacher and a source of merit. As a teacher, it reminds us that we are exiles on the way home and that worldly pleasure only dulls the mind, weakens the will, and undermines our fortitude. Suffering is also a source of merit when patiently borne for God’s sake and in union with Christ.

IMPLICATION: The Sanctifying Power of Conformity to God’s Will

From what we have just considered, we cannot help but reach the conclusion that conformity to God’s will sanctifies us since it makes our will one with God’s and unites all our other faculties to Him. To see this even more clearly, let us see how it purifies us, reforms us, and makes us more like Christ.

Conformity to the divine Will purifies us. To conform our wills to God’s certainly means to cease doing evil and learn to do good. It is through obedience and through the acceptance of God-ordained trials in union with Christ that we atone for our sins and cleanse our soul.

Conformity to God’s will also reforms us, curing what has been deformed by the love of pleasure. It cures our malice which results from attachment to creatures and especially to our own will. By conforming our will to God’s, we accept His judgements as our standards, His commandments and counsels as the rule of our will. Thus we wean ourselves from our attachment to creatures and self-will.

It also cures our weakness, the source of so many failings. Instead of relying on our own frail selves, we make God our support through obedience. He gives us His own strength enabling us to overcome even the severest temptations.

Finally, through conformity to God’s will, we make our wills one with Christ’s. Like Christ and with Christ, Whose food was to do the will of His Father, we desire only what He wills. We adopt His views, His sentiments, and His choices.

Conformity to the divine will, then, is one of the most effective means of sanctification. Perhaps the best way to conclude is with these words from St. Teresa, whose feast we celebrated yesterday:

The sole concern of him who has but entered into the way of prayer, — keep it in mind, it is very important — must be to strive courageously to conform his will to that of God… Herein lies, whole and entire, the highest perfection to which we can attain. The more perfect this accord is, the more do we receive from the Lord and the greater is our progress.