WISDOM OF THE SAINTS

UNIFORMITY TO GOD'S WILL
meditation based on St Alphonsus of Liquori treatise

1. Excellence of this Virtue.

Perfection is founded entirely on the love of God: Charity is the bond of perfection Col. 3:14and perfect love of God means the complete union of our will with God's: The principal effect of love is so to unite the wills of those who love each other as to make them will the same things St. Denis Areop. De Div. Nom. c. 4. It follows then, that the more one unites his will with the divine will, the greater will be his love of God. Mortification, meditation, receiving Holy Communion, acts of fraternal charity are all certainly pleasing to God but only when they are in accordance with his will. When they do not accord with God's will, he not only finds no pleasure in them, but he even rejects them utterly and punishes them.
To illustrate: A man has two servants. One works unremittingly all day long but according to his own devices; the other, conceivably, works less, but he does do what he is told. This latter of course is going to find favor in the eyes of his master; the other will not. Now, in applying this example, we may ask: Why should we perform actions for God's glory if they are not going to be acceptable to him? God does not want sacrifices, the prophet Samuel told King Saul, but he does want obedience to his will: Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices; and to hearken, rather than to offer the fat of rams. Because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel; and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey 1 Kings, 15:22, 23.
The man who follows his own will independently of God's, is guilty of a kind of idolatry. Instead of adoring God's will, he, in a certain sense, adores his own. The greatest glory we can give to God is to do his will in everything. Our Redeemer came on earth to glorify his heavenly Father and to teach us by his example how to do the same. St. Paul represents him saying to his eternal Father: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not: But a body thou hast fitted to me . . . Then said I: Behold I come to do thy will, O God Hab. 10:5-7. Thou hast refused the victims offered thee by man; thou dost will that I sacrifice my body to thee. Behold me ready to do thy will. Our Lord frequently declared that he had come on earth not to do his own will, but solely that of his Father: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me John 6:38. He spoke in the same strain in the garden when he went forth to meet his enemies who had come to seize him and to lead him to death: But that the world may know that I love the Father: and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I; arise and let us go hence John 14:31. Furthermore, he said he would recognize as his brother, him who would do his will: Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother Matt. 12:50.

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