5 — HOLINESS AND THE WILL OF GOD

Presence of God. — I place myself in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, asking Him for the grace to make His words penetrate my soul: “He who does the will of my Father… shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 7, 21).

Meditation

1 — The way that leads to holiness, and therefore to God, can be traced only by God. Jesus proclaims it forcefully: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 7, 21). And to show that the souls most united to Him and most beloved by Him are precisely those who do the will of God, He added: “Whoever does the will of my Father, that one is my brother and sister and mother” (Mt. 12, 50).

The saints drew inspiration at the school of Jesus; St. Teresa of Avila, after experiencing the most sublime mystical communications, does not hesitate to declare: “It is clear that the highest perfection does not consist in interior sweetness, in great raptures, in visions, and in the spirit of prophecy, but rather in the perfect conformity of our will to that of God, so that we too firmly will what we know He wills, accepting with the same joy both the sweet and the bitter” (Fd. 5, 10).

St. Teresa of the Child Jesus echoes this by saying that perfection consists in doing the Lord’s will, in being what He wants us to be, and she affirms: “The more souls rejoice in doing the will of God, the more perfect they are” (cf. St. 1). True love of God consists in adhering perfectly to His holy will, and therefore in wanting to do and to be in life only what the Lord wants from each one of us, to the point of becoming, so to speak, “a living will of God.”

Seen in this light, holiness is possible for every soul of good will; indeed, it is not excluded that the soul that leads a humble and hidden life may adhere to the divine will as much as and perhaps even more than the “great” saint who has received from God an external mission and has been enriched with mystical graces. The more souls do and rejoice in doing the will of God, the more perfect they are.

2 — In order to become holy, it is necessary that our conformity to the will of God be truly complete; it is therefore necessary that in the soul there be nothing at all out of harmony with the divine will and that in its actions it be moved only by that will. “The state of divine union consists precisely in the soul’s being, according to its will, wholly transformed into the will of God, so that there is in it nothing contrary to the divine will, but that in everything and through everything it is moved only by the will of God” (Ascent, I, 11, 2).

In all our actions we are always driven by love, which can be love of ourselves, love of creatures, or love of God. As long as the soul keeps something contrary to the will of God, that is, some disordered attachment to self or to creatures, very often it will act not under the impulse of the love of God, but out of desire for its own satisfaction or from disordered love for creatures. And thus it will go outside the will of God. Not only sin, but even the smallest imperfection or the least deliberate attachment is contrary to the will of God and prevents the soul from acting moved solely by the divine will.

But when the soul has no attachment left and — totally freed from self-love and from creatures — adheres only to God, it is moved to act only by the will of God, and it lives moment by moment according to the divine good pleasure. This soul has transformed, has lost its will in the will of God and therefore is now perfectly united to God Himself: this is the essence and summit of holiness.

Colloquy

O my God, You make me understand that Your holy will is the only necessary thing, it is my only and greatest treasure. What can there be in this life more beautiful and more secure, more perfect and holier than doing Your will? You have given me a free will, and what better use can I make of it than to employ it in adhering to Your divine will? Even if I could accomplish the greatest works, the finest undertakings, if these did not fully coincide with Your divine will they would have no eternal value and would therefore be destined to perish; whereas the smallest actions done according to Your will have an imperishable value.

I feel my nothingness, O Lord, I feel the weakness of my poor will, which now turns to one good, now to another, believing true good to be what in reality is imperfection, defect, evil. But Your will is unfailing; it can will only the true, the highest good, and therefore it wills only my good, my salvation, my sanctification. Nothing, then, can be more advantageous for me than to consecrate my will to Yours, my God.

“At this moment, O my God, freely and without any reservation, I consecrate my will to You... Your will, Lord, be always fulfilled in me and as pleases You best. If You want me among trials, give me strength to endure them, and let them come! If among persecutions, infirmities, poverty, and dishonors, I will not withdraw, O my Father!” (T.G. Cam. 32, 4-6, 10).

So many times I have made You the offering of my will, protesting that I want nothing more than Your divine will. But just as many times, alas, I have withdrawn this offering, and in my actions, in my work, in my apostolic works, instead of letting myself be guided solely by Your will, I have let myself be guided more or less by my self-love, by my own satisfaction. How far I am, Lord, from having lost my will in Yours! How attached I still am to my own views, to my own tastes! How many things there still are in me that oppose Your will; give me light to recognize them and strength to free myself from them! I confess it: every time that, in order to do my will, I move away, even a little, from Yours, I feel remorse, I feel the peace of my soul diminish. Only in Your will are my good, my peace, my salvation, my sanctification.

O Lord, hear my poor prayer: once again I offer You my will; take it, and keep it prisoner so that I may never again withdraw this offering.

With St. Teresa of the Child Jesus I say to You: “I do not want to become half a saint; I am not afraid of suffering for You; I fear only one thing, namely, to keep my own will; take it, because I choose all that You want” (St. 1).