. 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. . |
Now that our good Master
- has asked on our behalf,
and
- has taught us ourselves to ask,
for a thing so precious
that it includes all we can desire on earth,
and
- has granted us the great favour
of making us His brethren,
let us see
▫ what He desires us to give to His Father,
and
▫ what He offers Him on our behalf,
and
▫ what He asks of us,
for it is right
that we should render Him some service
in return for such great favours.
O good Jesus!
Since Thou givest so little
(little, that is to say, on our behalf)
how canst Thou ask [so much] for us?
What we give is in itself
nothing at all
by comparison
with all that has been given us
and
with the greatness of Our Lord.
But in truth, my Lord,
- Thou dost not leave us
with nothing to give
and
- we give all that we can
--I mean,
if we give in the spirit of these words:
"Thy will be done;
as in Heaven, so on earth."
Thou didst well, O our good Master,
to make this last petition,
so that we may be able to accomplish
what Thou dost promise in our name.
For truly, Lord,
hadst Thou not done this,
I do not think it would have been possible
for us to accomplish it.
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 since my earth
has now become Heaven,
it will be possible
for Thy will to be done in me.
Otherwise, on an earth
so wretched as mine,
and
so barren of fruit,
I know not, Lord, how it could be possible.
It is a great thing that Thou dost offer.
When I think of this,
it amuses me
that there should be people
who dare not ask the Lord for trials,
thinking that His sending them to them
depends upon their asking for them!
I am not referring to those
who omit to ask for them out of humility
because they think themselves
because they think themselves
to be incapable of bearing them,
though for my own part I believe
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.
I should like
to ask
those who are afraid to pray for trials
lest they should at once be given them
what they mean when they beg the Lord
to fulfil His will in them.
Do they say this
because everyone else says it
and
not because they want it to be done?
That would not be right, sisters.
Remember
that the good Jesus
is our Ambassador here,
and
that His desire has been
to mediate between us and His Father
at no small cost to Himself:
it would not be right for us
to refuse to give
what He promises and offers on our behalf
or
to say nothing about it.
Let me put it in another way.
Consider, daughters,
that, whether we wish it or no,
God's will must be done,
and must be done
both in Heaven and on earth.
Believe me, then,
Do as I suggest
and
make a virtue of necessity.
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!
Blessed be Thou for ever
and
let all things praise Thee.
May Thy name be for ever glorified.
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.
But as it is,
though my will is not yet free
from self-interest,
I give it to Thee freely.
For I have proved, by long experience,
how much I gain
by leaving it freely in Thy hands.
O friends,
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!
Before I tell you
in what this gain consists,
I will explain to you
how much you are offering,
lest later you should exclaim
that you
had been deceived and
had not understood what you were saying.
Do not behave
like some religious among us,
who do nothing but promise,
and
then excuse ourselves
for not fulfilling our promises
by saying that we had not understood
what we were promising.
That may well be true,
for it is
easy to say things
and
hard to put them into practice,
and
anyone who thought
that there was
no more in the one
than in the other
certainly did not understand.
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.
Our superiors do not always treat us strictly
when they see we are weak;
and
sometimes they treat both weak and strong
in the same way.
That is not so with the Lord;
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.
So I want you to realize
- with Whom (as they say) 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.
Do not fear
that He will give you
riches or pleasures or great honours
or any such earthly things;
His love for you is not so poor as that.
And 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.
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.
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.
When He sees a soul
who loves Him greatly,
He knows that soul
can suffer much for Him,
whereas one
who loves Him little
who loves Him little
will suffer little.
For my own part, I believe
that 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.
For if you give Him your will
in any other way,
you are just
- showing Him a jewel,
- showing Him a jewel,
- making as if to give it to Him
and
- begging Him to take it,
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.
If for no other reason than this,
it would not be right
to mock Him so often
--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.
For the truth is
that He gives it to us first
so that we may give it back to Him.
Ah, my God!
How well Jesus knows us
and
How much He thinks of our good!
He did not say
we must surrender our wills to the Lord
until we had been well paid
for this small service.
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,
as I shall presently explain.
Worldly people will do a great deal
if they sincerely resolve
to fulfil the will of God.
But you, daughters,
must both say and act,
and
give Him both words and deeds,
as I really think we religious do.
Yet sometimes
not only do we undertake
to give God the jewel
but we even put it into His hand
and
then take it back again.
We are so generous all of a sudden,
and
then we become so mean,
that it would have been better
if we had stopped to think before giving.
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.
As you will already have understood
how important this is,
I will say no more about it,
but I will tell you
why our good Master puts these words here.
He knows how much we shall gain
by rendering this service
to His Eternal Father.
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
of which you asked me to write to you.
In this matter, as I have already said,
we can do nothing of ourselves,
either by working hard
or by making plans,
nor is it needful that we should.
For everything else
hinders and prevents us from saying
[with real resolution],
"Fiat voluntas tua":
that is,
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.
If by means
of persecutions and sickness
and
dishonour and need,
here I am, my Father,
I will
not turn my face away from Thee
nor have I the right to turn my back
upon them.
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.
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.
Oh, my sisters,
What power this gift has!
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.
Ask yourselves
if that will not be a rich reward for you,
and
if you have not a good Master.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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,
as we say,
turn and turn about.
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.
But 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. [115]
And so it grows richer and richer;
and the more it serves,
the greater becomes its debt;
and
often, growing weary
of finding itself subjected to all
the inconveniences and impediments
and bonds
which it has to endure
while it is in the prison of this body,
it would gladly pay something
of what it owes,
for it is quite worn out.
But even if we do all that is in us,
how can we repay God,
since, as I say, we have nothing to give
save what we have first received?
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,
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.
I will give you one piece of advice:
■ 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.
■ You must practise simplicity and humility,
for those are the virtues
which achieve everything.
You must say:
"Fiat voluntas tua."
"Thy wil be done"
_____________________
. Foot Notes: [114] "Thy will be done: as in Heaven, so on earth." [115] Lit. "given it." . |
| . End of Chapter 32 The Way of Perfection . |
