Salesian Literature

Chapter 1  :  Union of human will with the divine permissive will

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Sin excepted, nothing happens but by God’s will – by a positive or permissive will which no one can obstruct, which is known only by its results.  These events, when they occur, show us that God has willed and planned them.

 

If we reflect here and now on everything that was, is, or ever will be, we shall be lost in wonderment.  From that we pass to gratification, to delight that God is infinite in wisdom, power and goodness.  The universe is but a tiny sample, a showcase, as it were, of the three divine attributes.

 

Think of men and angels, of the many-sidedness of natures, qualities, states, faculties, emotions, passions, graces and privileges which supreme providence had bestowed on that countless host of heavenly intelligences and human beings, in whom God’s justice and his mercy find a wondrous scope.

 

We are to experience extreme gratification as we watch God’s mercy at work in the manifold graces bestowed upon angels and upon men, as we see his justice active in an unending variety of penalties and punishments.  God’s justice and mercy have equal claim upon our love, are an equal source of wonder; both are good, because both are God.

 

Come, at last, to our own selves.  Ponder our many blessings of soul and body, also the mental and physical sufferings providence has in store for us.

 

Let us open the arms of our assent, let us clasp all these things in a loving embrace, let us comply with God’s holy will – these words the eternal hymn upon our lips: Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Mt. 6:10).  Yes, Lord, thy will be done on earth – where we know no pleasure untinged by pain, no roses without thorns, no day unclosed by night, no spring but winter goes before; on earth, Lord – where comforts are few, where toils are many.

 

For all that, O God, thy will be done – not only I the keeping of your commandments, but also in the enduring of suffering and sorrow where we are passive.  So may your will do by us, for us, in us, with us, all it pleases.

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