WISDOM OF THE SAINTS

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

2. Uniformity in all Things.-continues (2)

When the messenger came to announce to Job that the Sabeans had plundered his goods and slain his children, he said: The Lord gave and the Lord taketh awayJob. 1:21. He did not say: The Lord hath given me my children and my possessions, and the Sabeans have taken them away. He realized that adversity had come upon him by the will of God. Therefore he added: As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done. Blessed be the name of the Lord Ibid. We must not therefore consider the afflictions that come upon us as happening by chance or solely from the malice of men; we should be convinced that what happens, happens by the will of God. Apropos of this it is related that two martyrs, Epictetus and Atho, being put to the torture by having their bodies raked with iron hooks and burnt with flaming torches, kept repeating: Work thy will upon us, O Lord. Arrived at the place of execution, they exclaimed: Eternal God, be thou blessed in that thy will has been entirely accomplished in us ML (Vitae Patrum) 73-402, etc.
Cesarius points up what we have been saying by offering this incident in the life of a certain monk: Externally his religious observance was the same as that of the other monks, but he had attained such sanctity that the mere touch of his garments healed the sick. Marveling at these deeds, since his life was no more exemplary than the lives of the other monks, the superior asked him one day what was the cause of these miracles. He replied that he too was mystified and was at a loss how to account for such happenings. What devotions do you practice? asked the abbot. He answered that there was little or nothing special that he did beyond making a great deal of willing only what God willed, and that God had given him the grace of abandoning his will totally to the will of God. Prosperity does not lift me up, nor adversity cast me down, added the monk. I direct all my prayers to the end that God's will may be done fully in me and by me. That raid that our enemies made against the monastery the other day, in which our stores were plundered, our granaries put to the torch and our cattle driven off did not this misfortune cause you any resentment? queried the abbot.No, Father, came the reply. On the contrary, I returned thanks to God as is my custom in such circumstances, fully persuaded that God does all things, or permits all that happens, for his glory and for our greater good; thus I am always at peace, no matter what happens. Seeing such uniformity with the will of God, the abbot no longer wondered why the monk worked so many miracles Caesarius: Dial. distin. 10: cap. 9.

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