Salesian Literature

Chapter 4  :  Our wills compliant with God’s will to save us

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God has revealed in so many ways, by so many means, that he intends us all to be saved, no human being can be unaware of the fact.  That is why at the creation he made us wearing his own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27); why he himself wore our image and likeness at the Incarnation, and later suffered death to redeem the whole human race, to save it.  Love was his motive to such an extent that – as St. Denis, the apostle of France, relates – he one day told the saintly Carpus that he was “ready to suffer all over again for man’s salvation,” that he would be glad to do this provided it involved no man’s sin.

 

Even though everyone does not win salvation, it is still a genuine will on God’s part, whose activity is in accord both with his nature and with ours.  His goodness leads him to shower over us his helping graces, so that we may reach the bliss of his glory.  However, our nature demands that God’s liberality should leave us our liberty – to use his generous graces and be saved, or to remain indifferent to them and be lost.

 

One request I have ever made of the Lord, said the prophet (Ps. 24:4), let me claim it still, to dwell in the Lord’s house my whole life long, resting content in the Lord’s goodness, gazing at his temple.  How does God show his goodness, if not by pouring out upon us a share in his perfections?  His delight is to have the sons of Adam for his playfellows (Prov. 8:31), to shower his graces on them.

 

A free agent knows no greater delight than doing his own will.  What God wants of us is that we should sanctify ourselves (1 Thess. 4:3); our salvation is his whole desire.  Now, between what a man desires and what delights him, there is no difference; consequently, neither does God’s delight differ form his desire.  Thus God’s wish for man’s welfare is called his loving-kindness (cf. Ps. 5:13; 50:20), for it is courteous, indulgent, obliging, pleasant, delightful.  To the Greeks, as St. Paul shows (Tit. 3:4; cf. Acts 28:1), it was genuine philanthropy – in other words, a benevolence of goodwill towards men that is full of love.

 

We must intend our own salvation, Theotimus, in the way God intends it.  God desires that we should be saved; we too need constantly to desire what God desires.  Since God wants us to be saved, we should want to be saved; we should also welcome the means to salvation that God intends us to take.

 

It often happens, however, that the way to salvation is acceptable in outline, but dreadful in detail.  You will remember St. Peter … ready to suffer anything, even death, to bear his Master company; yet, when it came to the point, he grew pale, trembled, even denied his Master at the charge of a servant-girl (Lk. 22:23, 56,57).

 

Each one of us thinks he has strength enough to drink the Lord’s cup with him (Mt. 20:22); but when it is actually offered, we run away, we give it all up.  What we foresee in detail makes a stronger impression on the imagination – that is why, in my Introduction to Devotion, I suggested that general acts of prayer should always be followed by particular resolutions.  David was accepting particular trials as a means to perfection when he exclaimed: It was in mercy thou didst chasten me, Lord, schooling me to thy obedience (Ps. 118:71).  The apostles too rejoiced over their torments, because they had been found worthy to suffer indignity for the sake of Jesus’ name (Acts. 5:41).

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