9781644135945

The Light of the World
merely natural considerations and principles. Neither does he seek first his own advantage
or his own will before the will of God. The care for his own welfare comes second. The
preservation of his health, the fulfillment of his desires, the longing to be delivered from
disagreeable situations and persons, from difficulties and pains, from trials, temptations, and
suffering, are always made dependent on the will of God. Such a man sees God’s will first
in all things. Blessed is the soul for whom everything else recedes into nothingness before
the splendor and beauty of the divine will.
Not only must we see God’s will in all things, we must love and fulfill it. We shall undoubtedly
find that the will of God hedging our life about like a law and regulating it in all
its details is uncomfortable and repellent to our nature and its desires and appetites. It is a
yoke that often appears hard and oppressing; it will crush him who embraces it reluctantly
or unwillingly. But whoever embraces it wholeheartedly, it will lift up to the pure and holy
love of God. He who lives according to Christ’s spirit loves the law and yoke of God’s will.
He loves his work, his duties, the commands of his parents, and the orders of his superiors;
he loves the commandments of God and the Church, the rules and discipline of the order
to which he belongs. He loves the will of God, which he seeks and sees in all things, even
when his nature recoils from the difficulties, renunciations, humiliations, and trials of life.
For this reason he grows strong in fulfilling his duties with devotion and a noble constancy;
he regards nothing so insignificant that it may be neglected. To him all his efforts become
a blessed and gratifying cooperation with the will of God, a sharing of His life. He accepts
God’s will in all his undertakings. Everything, even the seemingly least important of his
duties, becomes holy and awe-inspiring. The true Christian is no longer guided by merely
human conceptions and motives: his life is imbued with a pure and strong love of the things
that please God. He no longer asks: How far am I bound to go? How far am I free to do what
I like? How far can I go without committing a serious sin? He simply loves with a love that
recognizes no such distinctions and questions. His love is the measure of his fulfillment of
the divine will. He obeys cheerfully and unreservedly. Such a man is indeed a good tree
that brings forth good fruit.
We are here on earth to know God, to see Him in all things, to love and serve Him, and thereby
to merit eternal life. God comes first; His glory is to be preferred to our well-being and our
happiness.
“Come, children, hearken to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (Gradual). “As
you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now
yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification”; that is, the fulfillment of the will
of God. “He that doeth the will of My Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven.”
In fulfilling his duties, the good Christian does not devote a meticulous attention to the
outward appearance of things. He does not stand behind a veil, as it were, to look for God from
afar off. Knowing that God is very near, he discovers Him in his work and in the fulfillment of
his duties. Being fully aware of God’s omnipresence, he realizes that where God’s will is, there
also is His grace and His aid. Knowing that he serves God when fulfilling his duties, he tries to
fulfill them wholeheartedly in order to find his Maker and become united with Him. Thus he
finds God and His kingdom in all things.
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