To accept what God wills is the great secret of the saints. When God's will harmonizes with ours, submission is easy. But if what God wants overthrows our plans, contradicts our desires, destroys our expectations, wounds our heart, oh, how difficult submission proves to be!
In these trying moments, look back and contemplate Jesus in Gethsemane; see Him struggle with His Father, trying to reduce the price of Redemption, daring to ask that the divine will of the Father, for the fulfillment of which He had become incarnate, be now modified in proportion to the weakness of His human strength.
Recall the cry from His feverish lips and burning heart: "Father, Father, take this chalice from me. You see clearly that I cannot...."
Then hear His consent to the bloody plan: Nevertheless, Father, not my will but Thine be done.
The all-important thing is that I abandon myself to God when all things abandon me. That very thing is so seldom done.
Common sense, however, demands it. If I believe God to be all that He really is, why do I not abandon myself completely to His Wisdom and to His Love? As someone has said, "I have only to fear fearing too much, my only fear should be to fail in submission to God."
That is common sense; that is virtue. Have I given myself to a merciless Master or to a Good Master? I must believe in His love and mercy. I must hope against hope. The more I believe myself to be forsaken, the more I will surrender myself to God.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)
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