Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest

Fiat voluntas Tua: Thy Will shall be done. These are not only the very words, Our Blessed Lord has taught us in the Our Father, but these are also the words He Himself used during His passion, when He prayed in the garden of Gethsemani. These words are used by most of us every day in our personal prayer, by the priests and religious in the Divine Office, and certainly by the whole Church during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Innumerable times God the Almighty is implored with this formula, and millions of Christians use it following the expressed wish of Our Savior. However, do we realize what we are asking for? Are we really following the Lord in His Passion, Who without doubt put His whole human existence in the utterance of these words with which he accepted the death on the Cross for our redemption? Is our form to use this prayer not rather always linked with some hidden condition? “Thy Will shall be done, but...” “...do not ask too much, do not demand my freedom, my worldly goods, my human happiness, my success, my comfort”? Do we realize, in our petty fear, that the Lord of the Universe could take our prayer literally, that everything depends on the realization of this prayer?

 

Indeed, our entire life as creatures of the Almighty and as children of the Merciful depends on the Will of the Father. Wherever this Will is not realized or lived, we at length suffer from the consequences of our own will, which belittles the sense of our existence meant to be also divine, and not only human. There is no final sense in doing our own will, if it is not in full conformity with the Will of God. Only the Will of God can bestow on us the happiness we really need, that is, the liberty that comes from inner peace, the wisdom that comes from revelation, and the richness that comes from grace. Everything that we do finds full accomplishment exclusively by being done according to the divine plan for us which is a reflection of the eternal glory of God to which we are to belong. Anything else is short of the dignity that Christ merited for us by accepting the Will of the Father for our salvation.

 

Lent is a period of time given to us by Holy Mother Church in which everyone of us can follow the Blessed Lord into the desert in order to get ready to do the Will of the Father. We try to empty our soul through the penance of our body from all things that do not pertain to the Will of God. Everything that is out of measure has to be re-measured and made to fit into the Eternal plan for us and the world. God wants us to give up all that we believe to be and to have, in order to receive and become what really counts. We can be sure and do not need to fear: For every wish we give up for His Will, we will get a multitude of graces that will increase the peace and order of soul that only His Will can create in us!

 

 

Msgr. R. Michael Schmitz