Doing God's will, your sanctification - 1

St. John Chrysostom says that all the perfection of the Love of God consists in resignation to the Divine will. He who conforms himself to the Divine Will is a man according to God's own Heart. I have found David... a man according to my own heart who will do all my wills.

I. St. John Chrysostom says that all the perfection of the love of God consists in resignation to the Divine will. As hatred divides the wills of enemies, so love unites the wills of lovers, so that each wishes only what the other desires. "True friendship consists in wishing and not wishing the same thing," says St. Jerome. Hence the Wise Man says: They that are faithful in love shall rest in him (Wis. iii. 9). Souls that are faithful in loving God acquiesce in all that He wills.

Since nothing is more dear to us than our will, the sacrifice of it is the most acceptable offering we can present to the Lord. This is the sacrifice God Himself continually asks of us with so much earnestness: My son, give me thy heart (Prov. xxiii. 26). Son, give me your heart, that is, your will. Nothing else that we offer to God can content Him as long as we reserve our will. If you had two servants, one of whom laboured continually, but always according to his own will; the other performed less work, but was obedient to all your directions, you would certainly entertain a greater regard for the latter, and little or no esteem for the former. Oh, how often do we deceive ourselves by desiring to engage in certain undertakings in order to please ourselves without seeing that they are not conformable to the Divine will. How often do we act through self-love, saying: But what I wish to do is conducive to the glory of God. But let us be persuaded that the greatest glory that we can give God is to conform ourselves to His Divine will. Blessed Henry Suso used to say: "God is not so much glorified when we abound in lights and spiritual consolations as when we submit to the Divine will and pleasure." Hence Blessed Stephana of Soncino saw among the Seraphim certain souls whom she had known on earth; and she learned by revelation that they had attained that sublime elevation by the perfect union of their will in this life with the will of God.

II. All the malice of sin consists in wishing what God does not will; for then, says St. Anselm, we in a certain manner endeavour to rob God of His crown. He who wishes to follow his own will against the will of God takes, as it were forcibly, from God His crown; for as the crown belongs only to the sovereign, so to do his own will, without dependence on others, belongs to God alone. Samuel said to Saul that to refuse to conform to the Divine will is a species of idolatry. It is like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey (1 Kings xv. 23). It is called idolatry because, in refusing to conform to the Divine will, man, instead of adoring the will of God, adores his own will. Now, since all the malice of a creature consists in contradicting the Creator, so all the goodness of the creature consists in a union with the will of the Creator. He who conforms himself to the Divine will becomes, as the Lord said of David, a man according to God's own Heart. I have found David... a man according to my own heart, and who shall do all my wills (Acts xiii. 22). The Lord also says: a soul that is conformed to my will shall have for her name My will. Thou shalt be called My pleasure in her (Is. lxii. 4). Yes, for in this happy soul, because self-will is dead, only the will of God lives.

Ah! happy the soul that can always say with the sacred Spouse: My soul melted when he spoke (Cant. v. 6). My soul melted as soon as my Beloved spoke. Why does she say melted? Because, what is rendered liquid no longer retains it own shape, but takes the form of the vessel in which it is contained. Thus loving souls do not retain their own wills, but conform them to whatever their Beloved wills. This conformity implies a will docile and pliant in all things pleasing to God, compared with the obdurate will that resists the Divine will. An instrument is said to be a good one when it is obedient to the person that employs it; if it refuse to obey, of what use is it? For example, were a brush to resist the hand of the painter—if, when drawn to the right it should turn to the left; if, when drawn downwards, it should seek to move upwards—what would the painter do? Would he not instantly cast it into the fire?