Salesian Literature

Chapter 3  :  How we are to comply with God’s declared will

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Christian doctrine clearly sets forth the truths God wants us to believe, the blessings he means us to hope for, the punishments he intends us to fear, the things he would like us to love, the commandments he means us to keep and the counsels he wishes us to follow.  All that goes by the name of God’s “declared” will, because he has declared and revealed to us that he means and expects us to believe, hope, fear, love and perform it all.

 

Since God’s declared will is an expression of his desire, not of his positive will, we can either follow it by obedience or oppose it by disobedience.  Our ability to refuse to do what he wants has demanded three activities on the part of God’s will; he means us to be able to oppose his will, he wants us to refrain from opposing it, yet he allows us to oppose it if we so desire.  Our ability to oppose God’s will we owe to our natural state, to our freedom; our actual opposition is the result of our ill will; to refrain from opposing him is to comply with his desire.  If we oppose his will, therefore, God lends no support to our disobedience; he simply leaves us to the arbitrament of our own wills (Eccl. 15:14), allowing the choice of evil.  When we obey him, however, God lends his aid, his inspiration, his grace.

 

Suppose you want to give one of your friends a good time: you invite him out to a meal – like the king in our Lord’s parable (cf. Mt. 22:2-10; Lk. 14:16-23); you beg him to come, to sit down to a spread, to enjoy himself.  Most assuredly, you do not force open your friend’s mouth, stuff the food down his throat, make him swallow it; he is not an animal you are fattening for Christmas.  Courtesy and kindness demand that you tempt him, not compel him, with such a favour; so you express it as something you would like him to do, not something you mean him to have at all costs.

 

So it is with God’s declared will.  He genuinely desires us to do what he makes known to us; for that reason he gives us all we need for the purpose, begs and prays us to use it.  More than that he cannot be expected to do.  Sunbeams are still genuine rays of light from the sun, even when something impedes their progress.  God’s declared will, in the same way, is still God’s genuine will, even if it is resisted – though it is not so effective as when it is complied with.

 

We comply with God’s declared will, then, whenever we accept what God shows us to be his plans – when we believe what he teaches, trust in his promises, fear his threats, love his commands and counsels, and live by them.

 

What else is the point of those things we do so often in our ceremonies?  For instance, we stand for the reading of the gospel as a sign that we are ready to obey God’s declared will which it contains; we kiss the book, when the reading is over, in token of our reverence for the word which declares to us the will of heaven.

 

So it was that many of the saints in olden days used to carry a portion of the gospels near their hearts.  That was why a large throne was erected amid the assembled bishops during the early Councils of the Church: it held the book of the gospels which represented the person of  Christ – king, doctor, director, spirit and heart of the Church and of its Councils – so great was their reverence for God’s will expressed in that book.  Indeed, the great model of pastoral life, St. Charles, Archbishop of Milan, always studied holy Scripture bareheaded, on his knees, to show how respectfully we should hear or read God’s declared will.

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A TREATISE ON THE LOVE OF GOD

BOOK 8: 

Love Compliant