. Discussion of CHAPTER 32 The Way of Perfection Expounds - these words of the Paternoster: "Fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in terra." [114] "Thy will be done: as in Heaven, so on earth." Describes - how much is accomplished by those who repeat these words with full resolution and - how well the Lord rewards them for it. . |
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In this chapter, St. Teresa writes:
"The aim of all my advice
to you in this book
is that we should
• surrender ourselves wholly
to the Creator,
• place our will in His hands
and
• detach ourselves from the creatures.
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St. Teresa continue her discussion
of the "Our Father"
of the "Our Father"
which she began in chapter 27.
Here, St. Teresa said:
• that "we should render (God) some service
in return for such great favours."
• that, of ourselves, we are worthless
and have little to give
"What we give
is in itself nothing at all
by comparison
with all that has been given us"
"But...how can we repay God,
since...we have nothing to give
save what we have first received? "
• but that
"we give all that we can
...if we give
in the spirit of these words:
"Thy will be done;
as in Heaven, so on earth."
St. Teresa explains
that in accordance to the petition,
"Thy Kingdom come" (in us),
which was made by Jesus on our behalf,
to Our heavenly Father
Jesus shows us
how to cooperate with this grace and
how to fulfill, as best we can,
our service to Our Father for this favor.
"For, knowing
how the good will of His Father
is to be gained,
He teaches us
how and
by what means
we must serve Him"
"But, since Thy Father does
what Thou askest Him
in granting us His Kingdom on earth,
I know that we can truly fulfil Thy word
by giving what Thou dost promise
in our name".
"For Thy Son gave Thee
this will of mine
in the name of us all
and
it is not right
that I, for my part, should fail"
"I will not turn my face away from Thee"
"For since my earth
has now become Heaven,
it will be possible
for Thy will to be done in me".
So, in order to fullfill the petition,
"Thy will be done",
St. Teresa
"want(s) you to realize:
"want(s) you to realize:
- with Whom you are dealing
and
- what the good Jesus offers on your behalf
to the Father,
and
- what you are giving Him
when you pray
that His will may be done in you"
"It is nothing else than this
that you are praying for".
She understands that:
"It seems very easy to say
"It seems very easy to say
that we will surrender our will to someone,
until we try it and realize
that it is the hardest thing we can do
if we carry it out as we should."
She wants to avoid having us
"not fulfilling our promises
(because) we had not understood
what we were promising."
"We are so generous all of a sudden,
and
then we become so mean...
through
- not fulfilling our promises to the Lord
in the Paternoster,
and
- not giving Him what we offer Him!....
that it would have been better
if we had stopped to think before giving"
. What is God's Will ? St. Teresa urges: • "make a total surrender of our will to the Lord, and • put ourselves in His hands so that He may do in all things what is best for us in accordance with His will" "Would you like to see how He treats those who make this prayer from their hearts? Ask His glorious Son, Who made it thus in the Garden."
"Think with what resolution and fullness of desire He prayed; and consider if the will of God was not perfectly fulfilled in Him through the trials, sufferings, insults and persecutions which He gave Him, until at last His life ended with death on a Cross. So you see, daughters, what God gave to His best Beloved, and from that you can understand what His will is" "Love is the measure of our ability to bear crosses, whether great or small. So if you have this love, sisters, try not to let the prayers you make to so great a Lord be words of mere politeness but brace yourselves to suffer what His Majesty desires. . |
St. Teresa discusses the significance of:
"Thy will be done
as in heaven, so on earth"
▲ God's Will will be accomplished
regardless of our cooperation or not.
God, in His Wisdom, will see to what is best for all.
"Whether we wish it or no,
God's will must be done,
and must be done
both in Heaven and on earth"
To those
"people who dare not ask the Lord for trials,
thinking that His sending them to them
depends upon their asking for them!",
she advises:
• "it would not be right for us
to refuse to give
what (Jesus) promises and
what He offers on our behalf "
in the 'Our Father' prayer.
"For if you give Him your will
in any other way,
you are just showing Him a jewel,
- making as if to give it to Him...
and
then when He puts out His hand to do so,
- taking it back
and
- holding on to it tightly.
Such mockery is no fit treatment for One
who endured so much for us.
--and it is by no means seldom
that we say these words to Him
in the Paternoster.
Let us give Him once and for all
the jewel which we have so often
undertaken to give Him."
• They should
"Make a virtue of necessity"
Since His Will will be done
"whether we wish it or no",
it would be most beneficial to our souls
to cooperate
to surrender our will
with gratitude and an open heart.
"...make this prayer from their hearts"
• Furthermore, she, is thankful
to leave the decisions up to God:
"O my Lord,
what a great comfort it is to me
that Thou didst not entrust
the fulfilment of Thy will
to one so wretched as I!"
"I should indeed
have had to be good, Lord,
if the fulfilment or non-fulfilment
of Thy will [in Heaven and on earth]
were in my hands"
"...put ourselves in His hands
so that He may do in all things
what is best for us
in accordance with His will"
Since our self-seeking nature,
would desire our own will and security
despite our powerless,
it is better to rely on the goodness of God.
"But as it is,
though my will is not yet free
from self-interest,
I give it to Thee freely."
▲ "Since my earth
has now become Heaven
it will be possible
for Thy will to be done in me"
St. Teresa states
that if one
has been led by God
to the Prayer of Quiet and
has been granted His Kingdom on earth,
they will desire
to be in His presence as musch as possible,
to share and suffer with Him
and
to confrom their will to His.
"and
the more it serves,
the more it serves,
the greater becomes its debt"
"...while it is in the prison of this body,
it would gladly pay something
of what it owes".
▲ Regarding those
who hesitate to surrender their will:
To "those who omit to ask for (trials)
out of humility
because they think themselves
to be incapable of bearing them",
She encourages them by explaining:
• "do not suppose
that you can reach this state
by your own effort or diligence;
that would be too much to expect.
On the contrary,
you would turn what devotion you had
quite cold."
"We can do nothing of ourselves,
either by working hard
or by making plans,
nor is it needful that we should".
"... the poor soul,
despite its desires,
is often
unable to do
all it would like,
nor can it do anything at all
unless it is given the power".
• Rely on God
"For everything else
hinders and prevents us
from saying [with real resolution],
from saying [with real resolution],
"Fiat voluntas tua"
"put ourselves in His hands
so that He may do in all things
what is best for us
in accordance with His will"
"that He Who
- gives them love enough
to ask for such a stern method
of proving it
- will give them love enough
to endure it"
"He knows
what each of us can bear,
and,
When He sees
that one of us is strong,
He does not hesitate
to fulfil His will in him"
• You must practise simplicity and humility,
for those are the virtues
which achieve everything.
You must say:
"Fiat voluntas tua."
"Thy will be done"
• "Love is the measure
of our ability
to bear crosses,
to bear crosses,
whether great or small.
So if you have this love, sisters,
...brace yourselves to suffer
what His Majesty desires",
"When He sees a soul
who loves Him greatly,
He knows that soul
can suffer much for Him,
whereas one who loves Him little
will suffer little".
"These, then, are His gifts in this world.
He gives them
in proportion to the love
which He bears us.
He gives
more to those whom He loves most,
and
less to those He loves least;
and
He gives in accordance with
- the courage which He sees
that each of us has
and
- the love we bear to His Majesty"
• She advises this prayer:
"May the Lord fulfil His will in me,
in every way and manner
which Thou, my Lord, desirest.
If Thou wilt do this
by means of trials,
give me strength
and
let them come".
▀ The Benefits of striving to surrender the will to God
• Renders Glory and service to God
"He
- sets a very high value
on what you give Him
and
- desires to recompense you for it
since He gives you His Kingdom
while you are still alive"
"So much does He value
this service of ours
that we do not know
for what more we can ask,
while His Majesty never wearies of giving".
"how much I gain
by leaving it freely in Thy hands"
"what a great gain is this"
"and how much we lose
through
- not fulfilling our promises to the Lord
in the Paternoster,
and
- not giving Him what we offer Him!
"For the truth is
that He gives it to us first
so that we may give it back to Him.
It will be realized from this
how much the Lord intends us to gain
by rendering it to Him:
even in this life
He begins to reward us for this"
"He knows how much we shall gain
by rendering this service
to His Eternal Father"
• Preparation and Disposition toward
further advancement in prayer and virtue
"We are preparing ourselves for the time,
which will come very soon,
when we
- shall find ourselves
at the end of our journey
and
- shall be drinking of living water
from the fountain I have described"
Unless we
- make a total surrender of our will
to the Lord,
and
- put ourselves in His hands
so that He may do in all things
what is best for us
in accordance with His will,
He will never allow us to drink of it.
This is the perfect contemplation"
"The more resolute we are in soul
and
the more we show Him by our actions
that the words we use to Him
are not words of mere politeness,
the more and more does Our Lord
- draw us to Himself
and
- raise us
above all petty earthly things,
above all petty earthly things,
and
above ourselves,
in order to prepare us
to receive great favours from Him,
for His rewards for our service
will not end with this life".
"Not content with having made this soul
one with Himself,
through uniting it to Himself,
He begins
▫ to cherish it,
▫ to reveal secrets to it,
▫ to rejoice
in its understanding
of what it has gained
and
in the knowledge which it has
of all He has yet to give it.
He causes it gradually
to lose its exterior senses
so that nothing may occupy it.
This we call rapture.
He begins to make
such a friend of the soul
that not only does He restore its will to it
but He gives it His own also.
For, now that He is making a friend of it,
He is glad to allow it to rule with Him,
So He does
what the soul asks of Him,
just as the soul does
what He commands,
only in a much better way,
since He
is all-powerful
and
can do whatever He desires,
and
His desire never comes to an end.
▀ St. Teresa Advises:
♦ Prayer
"Do Thou grant me the grace
of bestowing on me Thy Kingdom
so that I may do Thy will,
since He has asked this of me.
Dispose of me
as of that
which is Thine own,
in accordance with Thy will"
"If it be made with due resolution,
it cannot fail to draw the Almighty
• to become one with our lowliness
and
• to transform us into Himself
and
• to effect a union
between the Creator and the creature.
♦ Strive for Self-knowledge, Detachment
Humility, and Perseverence
"We can only learn to
know ourselves
and
do what we can
--namely,
surrender our will
and
fulfill God's will in us.
Anything else must be
a hindrance to the soul
which the Lord has brought to this state.
It causes it,
not profit,
but harm,
for nothing but humility
is of any use here,
and
this is not acquired
by the understanding
but by a clear perception of the truth,
which comprehends in one moment
what could not be attained
over a long period
by the labour of the imagination
--namely,
▫ that we are nothing
and
▫ that God is infinitely great.
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| . End of Discussion of Chapter 32 The Way of Perfection . |
