Salesian Literature

Chapter 4  :  Union of our wills with God’s permissive will – by disinterested love

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Deference means that we prefer God’s will to all else, though we know a great attraction to many other things.  Disinterestedness is a stage higher – it means that we are lovingly attracted to a thing only because we see God’s will in it; nothing else interests the unencumbered heart, when God’s will makes itself felt.

 

Beyond compare is St. Paul; his disinterestedness surpasses the heroic.  I am hemmed in on both sides, he tells the Philippians.  I long to have done with this life, and be with Christ, a better thing, much more than a better thing; and yet, for your sakes, that I should wait in the body is more urgent still (Phil. 1:23-24).

 

That great bishop, St. Martin, followed the apostle’s example.  At the close of his life he longed to go home to God, yet indicated his willingness to continue working for the good of his flock.  These words were on his lips:

 

How lovely is your dwelling place

O Lord of hosts.

My soul is longing and yearning,

is yearning for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my soul ring out their joy

to God, the living God (83:1-3).

 

Yet he went on to exclaim: “Nevertheless, Lord, if I am still needed here for the salvation of souls, it is not for me to lay down the burden; thy will be done” (Mt. 6:10).

 

How wonderful it was! – the loving self-surrender of the apostle and of that apostolic man.  Before them they saw the open gates of heaven or the myriad toils of earth.  No thoughts of self-interest dictated their choice; only God’s will could sway their hearts.

 

The joys of heaven are not a whit preferable to the sorrows of this world, if God’s permissive will has an equal place in both.  Toil is heavenly if that is God’s will; heaven would be wearisome were it not God’s will.  The whole longing of heaven and earth (as David says) is for God’s will to be done: What else does heaven hold for me, Lord, but thyself?  What charm for me has earth, here at thy side? (Ps. 72:25)

 

The heart of a disinterested man is like wax in God’s hands, ready for every impression of the eternal will. Such a heart knows no personal preference, equally prepared for anything, its one aim the fulfilling of God’s will.  It is not attracted by the things God wants, only by his will that wants them.  So, when God’s will includes several things, the heart chooses the one where God’s will is chiefly to be found, cost what it may.

 

It comes to this: what will please God is the goal which the uncommitted man has most at heart.  Wherever he espies it, he hastens after it.  Hell would be more attractive than heaven, even preferable to heaven, if God wished us to go to hell but not to heaven.  Could we imagine the impossible, could we suppose that such a man knew his damnation would be more to God’s liking than his salvation … he would forsake heaven and hasten to hell.

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