A 14th Sunday after Pentecost Thought: That Everything in the World Can Be a Sign of God's Will

We're called to do God's Will: Thy be done! But what do we really mean when we pray this, for example, in the Our Father? Here's what the Catechism tells as about this prayer given directly to us by Our Lord:

"...we first of all ask our Heavenly Father to give us the strength to obey His Commandments, and to serve Him in holiness and justice all our days; to do all things according to His will and pleasure; to discharge all the duties prescribed for us in Sacred Scripture; under His guidance and assistance to perform all that becomes those who are “born, not of the will of the flesh but of God” (St. John 1.13), thus following the example of Christ the Lord “who was made obedient unto death, even unto the death of the Cross” (Phillip. 2.8); finally, to be ready to bear all things rather than depart from His holy will in even the slightest degree.

...“Whoever”, says the Lord, “shall do the will of my Father who is in Heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother” (St. Matt. 12.50) that is to say, to him am I attached by the closest bonds of good will and love." 

But how do we know we're doing God's Will? If you've ever asked this question, an answer awaits us on this 14th Sunday after Pentecost.

Not only will be get and answer, but our spiritual writer takes this a step further. He proposes that everything in the world can be sign of God's Will. To wit:

     “’How shall I know what is the will of God?’ is the question that almost inevitably will be asked by those to whom we propose the divine will as the guiding norm of their life’s activities…God has disposed that each person have certain abilities of understanding and judgment, certain instruments and aids toward making a good choice, and a certain set of circumstances in which each choice is to be determined. Then God as much as tells them: ‘Now go ahead, and do your best to choose the best.’ If they act according to their lights and abilities, they have certainly done the will of God. Even though they have made a poor choice as far as human wisdom is concerned, they have made the wisest choice in the wisdom of God. They have been successful in God’s eyes, even though in the eyes of men the result is a miserable failure. Thus, doing our best to follow God’s will, we are always successful in His sight, who alone ‘judges just judgments’ – truly an immense consolation for those of us who feel keenly our limitations and our small human success.

    “The chief means for perceiving the will of God, which must be used with all other means, is the gift of the Holy Ghost, understanding. For it we should constantly pray: ‘Come Holy Spirit and send forth from Heaven a ray of Thy light!’ Le Guadier in his Latin work, Perfection in the Spiritual Life, gives nine principal ways of knowing the will of God: ‘His command, His counsel, the example of Christ, our state of life, obedience to human authority, divine inspiration, human advice, natural inspiration, resignation…And so it is, there is nothing in all the world that may not be a sign of the Will of God.’” (Fr. Francis J. McGarrigle, S.J.)

Or course, we've got to have the serious intention of doing God's Will before any of this makes any sense. But if we do, the most encouraging is the part that tells us to just take our best shot at doing God's will, and that should pretty much be sufficient. 

Just as encouraging is this idea that our efforts can be a success in God's eyes, even as others may consider it not so great, even an outright failure. Here we see the importance, the priority of intention over results. It's a bit different than how we would approach our job. There, we typically get paid for good results, right? Not so with doing God's Will. Intention rules. 

And if we're still concerned that we're not doing enough to know God's Will here, we might consider developing the regular habit of seeking the Light of the Holy Spirit. We see this in the last section. It breaks down the specific ways we might use to better know God's Will. If we're on track and want our ride to be a bit smoother, or perhaps desire to feel we're doing all we can, then check the nine ways of knowing God's Will. 

The key, though, is to first get our intention front and center - and to state our intention over and over again. If the Our Father serves as our main tool in this, perhaps we learn to pray the Our Father a bit more slowly, with our minds really focused when we say, "Thy Will be done."

However we get to work on this, we will eventually believe that everything in the world can be a sign of God's Will - because it is.

Happy Sunday!