Back, then, to the wisdom of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, and Calvary. How does our surrender match its summons? First, there are the circumstances surrounding the Nativity: lack of comfort, signs of not being wanted by those who might have been expected to help, no guarantee that on the material side matters would improve, loneliness at being in a strange place, uncertainty about the return home. These are things everyone has experienced at one time or another, but the fact that they were experienced by the most important family in the history of man should draw our attention to the will that arranges them. We should be grateful for being in the authentic tradition. If we want to know what God thinks we are worth, we might do worse than reflect upon what He sends us. We know how the Holy Family stands in the Father’s sight, and if we can find any share at all in the neglect they were allowed to suffer at the hands of their fellow human beings, we have reason to congratulate ourselves.
Moving from the infancy to the ministry, we find the same summons to faith. The natural is accounted for in the dimension of the supernatural. The riddle of human existence can be solved only by the Divine Wisdom who posed it, and when Wisdom itself assumes human life and explains how we are to proceed, the way is clear — but clear only to those who accept His terms. His terms are Himself. His terms are the Father’s will, to which He, the Son, was obedient “even unto death.”53 Without faith in the validity of our Lord’s claims — among them being the claim that He was the perfect fulfillment of the Father’s will — a man is forced back upon the historical and the rational. Such a man can see that every now and again in our Lord’s life, there was reasonable expectation of success: when discovered as a boy in the Temple, He showed promise of great things; on the shores of Tiberias, there was a move to make Him king; it was freely admitted that He spoke more convincingly than any of the leaders of His time; on Palm Sunday, there was a popular demonstration and He entered the capital in triumph. But from here onward, the way is by no means clear to the man without faith. If the historical is strained to the utmost in the story of the Resurrection, the rational fails completely.
Take the Passion itself, ending with the death that, to reason, means defeat and, to faith, the climax. Again, the lesson is that if we want to know the connection between God’s will and suffering, we have only to look at who it was who took on the whole of God’s will and who suffered more than anyone else in all history. Getting near to the mystery of the Son’s Passion is like getting near to the mystery of the Father’s will; there has to be the act of surrender. One single hour of suffering, taken as the will of God, does more for the soul than any amount of sensible devotion.
The demand of faith that the Passion makes of us is something more than the mere notional consent we give to the facts as revealed in the Gospels; the challenge is to our experience. In our own sufferings, such as they are, God’s grace is inviting us to active participation with those of our Lord. One of the main obstacles to our doing this — to the voluntary act of uniting our trials with His — is that we cannot imagine how our pinprick pains can be of any use to Him. Nor can we imagine how the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity can be subject to the same sort of things that bother us. Until we have convinced ourselves of the truth that our Lord could feel depressed, could feel the force of temptation, could be disappointed in people whom He loved, we have missed one of the most significant lessons Christ came to teach. So as to win our experimental knowledge of His Passion, He puts His own experience at our disposal, and so that we should have more to learn of His passion, we put our experience at His. Understood rightly, and not merely accepted as a doctrine, the Passion takes us to the very edge of human experience. Not all of us are called to follow as far as “If this chalice may not pass away but I must drink it, Thy will be done,”54 and perhaps very few indeed to the point of “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”55 but the experience of Christ is there — for the sharing.
Always in the last analysis it is the mystery of faith. The Blessed Sacrament is called exactly that: mysterium fidei. The Passion, the ordering of the universe, human free will and the foreknowledge of God, grace moving infallibly within an organization composed of ordinary human beings: mysteria fidei. Life, with its unending conflict between reason and faith, can find security only in acceptance. Those who think that reason has the last word go one way; those who cling to faith go another. Goodness knows what goes on in the mind of the rationalist, but are we to believe that in the mind of the man who chooses to walk by faith, the rationalist conclusion no longer presses? Of course it does. The difference lies in the choice, the firmness of the choice, and the fidelity with which the will abides by the choice. “We must have great faith,” says Mouroux in his book The Meaning of Man, “if we are to arrive at the harmonious union of the world.” Yes indeed, and we must also have great faith if we are to arrive at a harmonious union within ourselves.
A Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, wrote a number of novels that had as their theme the struggle of human existence. Man, never quite sure of his convictions, drives himself desperate with his search for truth. But what qualifies is neither the uncertainty nor the desperation but the unremitting quest for truth. More fancifully, it is suggested that just as the writer of fiction relies on his characters to put across his message, so God needs human beings as a medium for His revelation.
More fancifully still, Unamuno suggests that if the novelist can dream up people out of his own head and give them being, may not God be doing the same — may not we be simply God’s dream? May not the whole of human existence be no more than what God happens to be dreaming? Theologians would probably have something to say about his idea (which makes the elemental instinct for survival express itself in man’s most imperative prayer, “Dream us, O Lord”), but if you substitute willing for dreaming, you need not be so far out. If the concept that makes us issue from a divine reverie is disagreeable, there is nothing disagreeable about being deliberately created, by the all-wise will of God. Correspondingly, it is not for a deity to issue from the dreams of man, and this is what in effect takes place when a man defines his own private religion. Subjective religion, selecting and interpreting and changing back and forth, dreams up not only its own standards but also the nature of its own source.
Back, then, to the surrender of the human will and reason to divine will and reason. How to do it, where to find our practical, viable plan? Christ is the perfect exemplar, God and man, the divine will made actual, divine love made imitable.
Chapter 15
Apostles of God’s Will
If what our Lord did and suffered brings us nearer to doing and suffering in the name of the Father’s will, what He preached and prayed should do the same. He had been foretold as “the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”56 The prophecy related to His interior life. But there were other prophecies that related to His exterior life, to His work and message. He was hailed Isaiah as “prince of peace,”57 and seven centuries later by Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, as “the Orient from on high” who would visit the world “to enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace.”58 So it is of first importance that we should know something about this peace He was to establish and this light He was to spread.
In our Lord’s mission on earth, two elements stand out as surpassing all others: the work of redeeming mankind, and the work of founding His Church. This was the peace He had come to bring; this was the light He had come to spread. It might be said that every recorded act of His, and every recorded sermon, bore upon one or other of these elements. Now, He has told us that we must learn of Him, that we must come to the Father by way of Him, that His is the peace which He alone can give and which the world cannot disturb, that His is the light without which man works in darkness. He is the shepherd, the vine, the word, the name by which miracles are worked and prayers heard.
Such richness of illustration and identification overwhelms us, and we st
art casting about for a formula that will express all our Lord’s activities in one. Fortunately, there is no lack of texts that give us what we want. Our formula, differently phrased in different passages of the New Testament, contains the essential quality we have been considering throughout this book. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me,” our Lord says at the well in Samaria, “that I may perfect His work.”59 “I seek not my own will,” He says when He is attacked for making Himself equal to the Father, “but the will of Him that sent me.”60 He repeats this phrase almost word for word when asked for a sign, when asked for “true bread from heaven.”61 Our Lord was perfectly fulfilling the Messianic psalm that makes him say, “Behold, I come to do Thy will, O God.”62 The point we are trying to make here is simply that it was by doing the Father’s will that Christ redeemed mankind and founded a Church. So that right at the end of His life, He was able to say, “It is finished: I have done the work which Thou gavest me to do.”63
The Father had willed the redemption of man and the foundation of the Church. Inseparably united with the will of His Father, Christ knew that nothing of the Father’s will was left to be done on earth; He could now continue the union in heaven.
So much for the relationship between our Lord’s outward accomplishment and inward union. What has He to say about ours? The story is parallel, and again the texts are abundant. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,” Christ explains when pointing out that a tree is judged by its fruits, “but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”64 The response has to be that of obedience, not that of emotion or habit or professional pride. The same demand for a deliberate choice, when superficial impulse may incline the other way, is stressed in the parable of the two sons, which ends with the question that a child of five would be able to answer: “Which of the two” — one of whom was all eagerness to work but did not, the other reluctant but finally obedient — “did the father’s will?”65 Again, there is that vivid scene given by St. Mark which shows our Lord so pressed with His work of preaching that Mary and some of His relations have to send messages to say they would like to speak to Him: “Who is my mother and my brethren? . . . Whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.”66 Lastly, when He tells us how to pray, He insists that our disposition should be that of readiness to do God’s will. Without “Thy will be done,” there would seem to be little point in praying at all. With it, there is nothing that may not be prayed for, and no reason the prayer should ever stop.
We could go through the letters of the New Testament, combing them for references to the necessity for surrender to the Father’s will. “He who does the will of God,” says St. John, “abides forever.”67 “That doing the will of God,” we read in Hebrews, “you may receive the promise.”68 St. Paul to the Romans: “Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God.”69 “Not serving the eye,” St. Paul warns the Ephesians, “but as servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.”70 He tells the Colossians how Epaphras is constantly praying for them that they “may stand perfect and full in all the will of God.”71 There is testimony everywhere you look: the early Church was fed on the will of God, the word of God, the law of God.
We accept all this, and indeed there is no getting away from it if we have any faith at all, but the difficulty for most of us is keeping it up — both keeping up the appreciation of the doctrine and the will to put the doctrine into effect. Our Lord saw this weakness in us when He said, “If you continue in my word, then shall you be my disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”72 The idea of service carries with it the idea of perseverance. The connotation is not so immediate today as it used to be, because room-service and car-service and similar passing acts of service have brought along a new element, but certainly when we talk about the service of God, we do not think of something intermittent. If God’s will is a constant living actuality, our response should follow suit.
Too many people imagine that in order to serve God generously, they must be living lives they do not like. This is a misconception that deters people from embarking upon such a service because they do not see themselves persevering indefinitely. These are the people who understand about the first half of the text just quoted but who have missed the point about the second. The reward of continuing in God’s service is knowledge of the truth — the truth “which makes you free,” not “which makes you miserable.” Enjoying the liberty of the children of God, the soul enjoys life. There is a great difference between a life of self-sacrifice, which is the Christian ideal, and the life of self-torture, with which we often identify the Christian ideal.
God gives us our lives to lead, and it is ungracious of us if we hate every minute of those lives. As we have seen, God’s will may (and on occasion must) involve suffering, loneliness, and boredom; but suffering, loneliness, and boredom are not designed to make up the whole of life. We are not meant to be in the flame from morning until night, and certainly we are not meant to congratulate ourselves if we are. We are told to “rejoice in the Lord . . . everywhere give thanks . . . make of our sacrifice a pleasing offering,”73 which clearly we cannot do if we cannot associate God’s will with peace and liberty but only with conflict and darkness. If it is true that “God’s providence is my inheritance,” then I have inherited peace. I cannot proclaim my trust in providence and at the same time deny my peace. It may not be the bland tranquility of rest that follows my surrender to the providence of God, but then I have not bargained for the smooth. It will be the tranquility of order, it will be beyond the reach of foreboding, and will rely upon foundations more sure than any I could lay by careful planning. And as such is something to be thankful for.
Which brings us to the question of gratitude. We have seen how God’s will is inseparable from Himself. Consequently, it is true to say that we are receiving expressions of Him, evidences of Him, little private revelations of Him, if you like, at every turn. If this is so, ought we not to be giving thanks — if not all the time, at least as often as we can? In a superior sort of way, perhaps, we smile a superior sort of smile when nuns say Deo gratias every few minutes and at the slightest thing. But they are right to say it. Let it be hoped they mean it.
The slightest thing deserves gratitude. Without thinking, we rely upon God’s providence from moment to moment, so to make a habit of thinking about it and giving thanks is bound to bring us closer to God. We depend upon God for the air we breathe, but who gives thanks for air? The habit of conforming to God’s will and the habit of thanking for it go together. That is why we find the saints brimming over with gratitude about everything: they live in perpetual acknowledgment.
Consider the difference this must make to the life of prayer. Recollection becomes the more or less normal thing. Where before it was the pleasurable that elicited acts of gratitude, now it is the conformity that produces them. The question at this stage is not whether the particular circumstance is pleasurable or painful, but whether the will can rise to it and be grateful for it. Accordingly, with conformity to the providential plan as its foundation, prayer becomes not so much a series of acts as a state. The condition on which it operates is solely the will of God, and the will of God is in constant operation.
Whether such prayer is seen as receptive or cooperative, as contemplative or discursive, it makes for the habit of gratitude. The thankful realization that all things come from God becomes second nature and the reason for living. The air we breathe may be cold or foggy or damp, but what difference does that make? We cannot go on breathing without it.
In the previous section, we have talked about perseverance, peace, gratitude, and prayer. In case the connection between these is not at once obvious, we will emphasize the truth that there exists in fact a very considerable link. You have only to put the qualities in reverse t
o see how instability, insecurity, ingratitude, and neglect of prayer must destroy the exchange between the soul and God. Not until final perseverance is rewarded, peace eternally established, and gratitude assumed into everlasting prayer before God’s throne shall we fully appreciate the synthesis. But in the meantime, while engaged on this journey which paradoxically finds its term only in infinity, we can proceed in unity. What has been described as “the happening of the saints to their vision” can be anticipated even by us who are beginners.
Hitherto we have dwelt upon aspects of peace and unity with regard to the soul. In the remaining pages, we can investigate peace and unity in their wider context. More important than our own selves is the human race, and questions that have to do with world order are not as academic and remote as they may seem when we read about them in the papers. We should know that because God’s will is working in the world as well as in us, the condition of the world is our concern. No part of God’s will is excluded from our interest, and the part that relates to the spread of Christ’s peace is every Christian’s responsibility.
From the first Christmas day, when the Gloria in excelsis Deo announced peace to men of goodwill, until April 11, 1963, when Pope John XXIII issued his encyclical letter Pacem in terris to the world, the message has been the same. And in the year of this writing, John’s successor, Pope Paul VI, is working on his predecessor’s legacy. The present-day version of the Christmas hymn is roughly this: peace results from the order implanted by God in the heart of man; it means peace with God, peace with fellowmen, peace with authority. Such is the main theme of Pacem in terris. Commentators in the press, non-Catholic as well as Catholic, seem agreed that the encyclical is one of the most moving documents of recent years. Moving to what? Not, if we are to judge by what has since happened in the world, to action.
Prayer and the Will of God Page 12