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Two Wills of God |
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The Two Wills of God Just as Jesus had come to do the will of His Father, so Francis de Sales zeroed in on this aspect of living Jesus in our lives as one of the key elements of Salesian spirituality. How do we know the will of God? Francis shares his insights with us in the Treatise on the Love of God, the source of most of this talk. Let us begin with a story about a man who traveled over land and sea to check for himself the extraordinary fame of a certain Guru. "What miracles has your Master worked?" he said to a disciple. "Well, there are miracles and miracles. In your land it is regarded as a miracle if God does someone's will. In our country it is regarded as a miracle if someone does the will of God." Does that story resonate with your own experience of people and life? Well, by practicing Salesian spirituality you will be performing miracles because doing the will of God is its foundation. God is good and in His goodness He created our beautiful world. The Baltimore Catechism tells us that God created us to know, love, and serve Him in this world so as to be happy with Him forever in heaven. But Teresa of Avila, one of the three women proclaimed a doctor of the Church, says, "All the way to heaven is heaven." Indeed, we are happy even now in this world if we are serving God, that is, if we are doing God's will for love of Him. For Francis de Sales, love is the great guiding force of life and even of existence. All of us have experienced God's unconditional love; now let us look at our response of love to God's love. Jesus loved God and was able to say, "I always do the will of my Father." As for us, our actions are motivated either by self-love or by love of God and His will. When we live Jesus, we are doing the will of our heavenly Father either 1) by our efforts to obey His commands or 2) by our acceptance of whatever happens in our lives. Talking about the two wills of God is a helpful distinction when God's will seems to be asking contradictory things of us. Our challenge is to live between these two wills of God. Simply speaking, our response to the declared will of God is action while an appropriate response to God's permissive will is acceptance. Both responses are dictated by love -- either of conformity or of submission. We are created in God's image and likeness and have received the wonderful gift of FREE WILL. We may choose whether or not to obey God's commands and follow His inspirations. In the Love of God Francis de Sales gives this analogy. When you invite friends to a party, you lead them to a buffet loaded with delicious foods, expecting them to enjoy themselves. But never would you dream of forcing them to eat. Courtesy and kindness demand that you tempt your friends with goodies, but you would never stuff food down their throats. So too God genuinely desires us to comply with His will but will never force us to do so. God leaves us free to choose our response to His inspirations and commands, to the trials and tribulations as well as to the joys and delights which He permits. But how do we know the will of God? you ask. Discernment of God's will is not always easy. Church teaching and Scripture provide a framework within which we may seek and find God's will. There is little difficulty when the choice is between right and wrong. But in the case of choosing which of two good actions is God's will, we may experience a problem. If it is a matter of importance, like choosing a spouse, buying a house, changing careers, etc., we really need to weigh the pros and cons. But for tiny daily activities whose outcome either way is insignificant, let's follow our gut-level inclinations. Otherwise we might become scrupulous. Furthermore, while we worry about what is the better thing to do in one situation, we miss many other opportunities of doing good. Not that I am advocating rushing from one good deed to another. Our actions do give praise to God, but time wasted in trying to discern between the good and the better is lost forever. Here is a story that illustrates the whole purpose of a discernment process.
To discover the deepest inclination or desire of our heart, we need to spend time reflecting on our gifts and on the activities that are sources of life for us, that is, activities we enjoy doing. God wants us to be happy. If you keep in mind that happiness is not the same as pleasure, this syllogism reveals a very basic truth of God's good news. Following the deepest desire of our hearts is our happiness. Happiness is the will of God for us. Therefore, following the deepest desire of our hearts is the will of God for us. I repeat, following the deepest desire of our hearts is the will of God for us. But as the story indicated, reflection, or discernment, is useful in discovering this deepest desire and in making important decisions. For matters of very great significance, Francis suggests a discernment process similar to the following: First, we narrow the options down to two, if possible. Then we ask for the light of the Holy Spirit and pray to be indifferent to everything except God's will. We may seek the advice of a spiritual director or of a few friends to help us better understand the implications of each choice. Or we might imagine ourselves involved in the activities following upon one choice and then upon the other. We check to see if doing God's will is our main concern. When we are willing to accept either alternative, provided only that God's will is done, then we are ready to examine the pros and cons. We look at past events, letters, conversations, feelings, etc. which may be signs that would favor one choice over another as God's will. After weighing the pros and cons, we come to a decision in God's name. Then we wait a few days to see if we are comfortable with our choice. If we remain at peace, we may be confident that our choice is God's will for us. We now act upon our decision. Even if we later have second thoughts when things become difficult, we do not waver. Our decision was made in the context of prayer for God's assistance, and we are confident that God will help us to carry it through. As Francis himself says, "Had we made another choice, we might have found things a hundred times worse -- to say nothing of the fact that we do not know whether God wishes us to experience comfort or trials, peace or war." In short, the discernment process includes the following:
Jane de Chantal was also an advocate of the discernment process and recommended it to directees facing important decisions. To one of them, Commander de Sillery who was considering the priesthood after his retirement from a career in public service, Jane de Chantal wrote, "This approval of your friends is a very real, tangible sign of God's plan for you in this second vocation of yours. What greater grace and consolation could there be for your dear and deserving heart than the sense that you are doing God's will by spending the rest of your days in this..." These words surely indicate that Jane expected de Sillery to weigh pros and cons before making important decisions. She would give us the same advice as well. We want to live all the time in God's will, not just during life-changing transitions. We know that whatever happens to us is part of God's providential love and will for us. At times we may find ourselves in situations which make it impossible to follow God's will as revealed by discernment. History gives us the example of Jane de Chantal who had discerned under Francis' direction that she was called in her widowhood to a life of chastity and withdrawal from the world. How could that be possible when she had four small children to raise and a father-in-law who threatened to disinherit her children if she did not come and take care of him? According to Salesian thought, God's full will is in both the inspirations that the individual or community receives and in the events, facts, and realities that exist at present in one's life. Salesian spirituality expects us to find a point of spiritual balance which will enable us to LIVE BETWEEN THE TWO WILLS OF GOD. This is the advice Francis gave to all his directees; this is his advice to us. This is what Jane did as you probably noted if you have read her biography; this is what we are called to do. What does this mean? In Books 8 and 9 of the Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales discusses the two wills of God. I'm sure you have heard of the Serenity Prayer. "God, please give me the strength to change what I can change, the courage to accept what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference." Well, one facet of God's will refers to things we cannot change, like native ability, temperament, parents and siblings, physical health, etc. These are the gifts, whether limitations or blessings, that define your uniqueness and mine. Here we need "the courage to accept what we cannot change." For though we may kick and scream at FATE, there is very little we can do to change matters. But when we pray, "Please give us the strength to change what we can change," we are asking for the grace to act wisely and resolutely in difficult situations. Human nature, being what it is, we find it hard to take an unpopular stand whether we are talking about setting boundaries for our children, respecting the rights of others in our business dealings, or even such a little thing as mentioning the good qualities of a person under criticism. Motivated by love of God, we respond to the daily inspirations and events in a way that will further the kingdom of God here on earth. When we pray "for the wisdom to know the difference," we are asking God to help us recognize the painful realities in our lives which though temporary are inescapable. The challenges in this category become a crucible in which God gradually transforms us into the likeness of his son, Jesus. According to Francis de Sales, how we endure the pain of these trials, whether physical, mental, or psychological, is the best measure of our love of God! We must never think that God SENDS us pain and suffering; He only ALLOWS us to experience the consequences of our own actions or those of others that have repercussions in our lives. God does not interfere with the natural laws He decreed at the beginning of time. If we or others break any of these laws, we reap the fruits of our actions. For example, if I abuse the body that God has entrusted to me by overeating, burning the midnight oil, or becoming a workaholic, I will develop medical problems, the consequence of my own choices. If greed for greater profits causes a company merger in which my job is eliminated, then I have to find a new job, the consequence of a choice by others which infringes on my welfare. Whatever IS or exists in our lives is in some way within God's providence. Everything that happens to us provides us with an opportunity for sanctification, depending upon our response. The old adage, "God writes straight with crooked lines," reminds us that God even brings good out of evil. All things DO work together unto good for those who love God, Sometimes it takes a while. Will we be patient? You know that "patience" comes from "patior," a Latin word that means "to suffer." God is very creative in finding ways to transform apparently great misfortunes into opportunities for growth depending on our response in each situation. The following story illustrates this creativity in a delightful manner:
When Tony de Mello told this story, he ended it with the comment, "We are wise when we leave it to God to decide what is good luck and what bad, and thank Him that all things turn out well for those who love Him." Living between the Wills of God The
diagram below may help us understand what living between the two wills
of God means in Salesian spirituality. The two wills of God are the
declared and the permissive. The declared will of God, also known as the
signified will of God, tells us what God expects us to believe, hope,
fear, love, and do. We learn these through our prayer and reflections on
Scripture, the Church teachings, devotional literature, spiritual
direction, and prayer. The permissive will of God, also known as the
will of God's good pleasure, is shown to us in the events, facts, and
the circumstances of the present moment in our lives. At times God's
permissive will coincides with our own inclinations and we contentedly
rest in the will of God's good pleasure. But at other times, we are the
recipients of suffering, pain, sorrows and other difficulties which we
have to endure. At such times, we are called to accept the action of
God's purifying love in His permissive will.
How are we co-creators with God when we do His declared will? To some extent we create our own future by the life choices we make. You may have been a co-creator with God in the birth of a baby. Or you may have become a co-creator with God by the profession you chose and your actions within it. God expects us to be good stewards of the earth and its wealth. By our vote in political affairs, by our reaching out to those less fortunate in worldly goods than we are, by our promotion of legislation that would protect or clean up the environment, by our efforts for social justice in the world marketplace, etc., we can choose to be God's co-creators of our world. We will be so IF after reflecting prayerfully on God's declared will revealed in the Scriptures and other teachings, we conform our actions to what we have perceived in the depths of our beings. In Salesian spirituality, our love of God's declared will is called love of conformity. Actions stemming from such prayerful reflection are a form of love and not merely an obligation of justice. As mentioned earlier, we have no problem when God's permissive will coincides with our own, for example, when we receive an unexpected bonus at work. But the story is different when we find ourselves in situations which totally prevent our doing what we had discerned to be God's will for us. Recall Jane de Chantal's dilemma when she was drawn by God to a life of prayer and withdrawal from the world but was needed at home to care for her young children and her father-in-law. Living between those two wills of God forced Jane to focus on the demands of the present moment, trusting God to accomplish His long-range designs in her. By this submission in love to all God asked of her, Jane creatively responded to both these seemingly contradictory wills of God. She was obedient to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and to the guidance of her director, Francis de Sales, who helped Jane to develop a life of prayer and withdrawal from the world that did not interfere in any way with her duties as a mother and head of a household. So successful was she that her servants commented that everyone had been inconvenienced when Jane was with her first director, but never after she became the directee of Francis de Sales. As with Jane, our days are filled with invitations from God's permissive will, some pleasant and others a real cross. If we are obedient to these inspirations of the Holy Spirit, we will be practicing the love of submission. Now this love of submission has a number of forms according to Francis de Sales. If we patiently tolerate a difficult situation, we exhibit RESIGNATION. Such submission is neither loving nor peaceful even though it might be genuine and steadfast! If it were possible, we would change God's script! Even Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane is an example of this submission when He cried out, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as You will." Our Lord obeyed His Father's will; He submitted to death, although He would have preferred to live. In the end Christ's obedience led to His resurrection and to eternal life for Him and for us. Greater love motivates the submission characterized by DISINTERESTEDNESS. Here we are attracted lovingly to something because we see in it God's Will, which is the only thing in the whole universe that has meaning for us. Health or sickness, strength or weakness, wealth or poverty, consolation or desolation -- we embrace whatever happens as God's will and desire nothing else. We need time to grow into such total detachment. And we probably will spend most of our lives cooperating with God in the stripping process required to attain it. The culmination of this process will be the death of our self-will. As Francis says in the Treatise, "The will then neither knows nor cares what it wants; it surrenders itself utterly and unreservedly to the permissive will of providence, becoming so blended with this sweet will that it can say with St. Paul, I live now, no longer I, but Christ lives in me!" The word disinterestedness, also known as indifference, can mean a lack of interest in created things. But for Francis de Sales, it really is a synonym for the love of God. God created us and all other creatures for Himself and our end is to praise, honor, and serve our Creator. Indifference is, then, not scorn for creatures and self but as intense a love as possible for all creation. This love flows from our love of God and returns to God without any reservation. Mary is the outstanding exemplar of this disinterestedness. She was so united to the will of God that she accepted the sorrows of standing at the foot of the cross with the same peace and love that she had accepted the joys of mothering the Child Jesus. God's will was all that mattered. Various passages in her letters indicate how well Jane had internalized the teachings of Francis, added her own insights, and then used these in her correspondence. In letters to the Commander de Sillery, Jane discusses God's will in the context of the moderation or balance so essential to Salesian spirituality. She urged de Sillery to do good deeds quietly because that was God's will. If she were speaking to us, Jane would say that in our faults and imperfections as well as in our good works, we need to unite ourselves to the will of God's good pleasure gently, quietly, and with peace of mind. Francis de Sales used to say that we may make up for our failures by a humility that is gentle and tranquil. Jane once said that after any failure, all we need do is to humble ourselves quietly before God by a simple admission of the fault and then think no more about it. Francis de Sales tells us that since God did not make us angels, we must put up with our human nature and be satisfied with the level of purity which, humanly speaking, we can achieve. If you stumble along as I do, these words are consoling indeed. I find forgiving myself is more difficult than forgiving others, whether my offenses were whoppers or peccadillos. Is this your situation too? Humility is the key; now humility is merely facing reality and admitting the truth. Why am I, and I suspect you also, so slow to acknowledge my dependence on God and God's merciful love for everything? Even for sanctification? Apropos of our faults, I suspect that they may be part of our uniqueness and lovableness in God's eyes. Anyway God loves us unconditionally, just as we are! That is the good news! Jane de Chantal once said that God wants only our hearts, and that He is more pleased when we accept our weakness out of love and reverence for His holy will, than when we force ourselves to perform great works of penance. At times, God's Providence offers us tangible opportunities where we can do nothing but endure quietly the suffering we find in them. Earlier I had said, God writes straight with crooked lines. Whether our sufferings are the result of our own excesses or of the actions of others, God uses such happenings to transform us as He wills. What is of vital importance is that we remain ready for whatever God asks or permits. Francis said that the truly indifferent soul remains in a state of attentive waiting for all it shall please the Divine Will to allow. Whenever an event happens, the waiting changes into consent. This is the habitual response whether the incident gives pleasure or pain; this response is disinterested love. For according to Francis, if we truly are indifferent, we are like a balls of wax in God's hands. I quote from the Love of God,
As Jesus had said, "I do only the will of my Father." So too we, please God! |
