A Talk About Prayer* (Part 6)
Next follows the petition, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."
And here we speak to Our Lord as to a spouse: for while respect and veneration are owed to the name of Father, and between a king and his subjects there is the interchange of commands and obedience, so, between two who are so closely united as two spouses, there is an interchange of wills, each being desirous to do the will of the other. For all that one has is the other's, and their affairs are in common.
So Our Lord makes all He has ours - and all He desires is that we should make all that is ours His; and when there are common interests, there should be one will. He desires us to give Him our will; and when we have done so, and sincerely desire and do His will, He, in return, does our will, and all that we ask of Him He grants us; so that, as St. Teresa says, Our Lord is pleased that thus He and the faithful soul should command by turns, as it were - the soul doing His will, and He doing hers.
In His kingdom in heaven His will is perfectly done; so it is no more than right, if we desire His kingdom to be on earth (as we have asked in the former petition), that His will should be done in this kingdom as in the other. Here, then, you can earnestly pray for this perfect conformity of your will with His will; in this conformity consists all perfection....
(Continued tomorrow)
* From Spencer's "The Little Grain of Wheat."
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From "Prayer-Book for Religious"
by Rev. F.X. Lasance
Copyright 1904, 1914
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