We continue our deep dive into THE HEART OF CATHOLIC PRAYER.
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Years ago, a friend’s brother was at Reed College in Oregon. It’s one of those schools where the students seem to major in protesting more than in actual studying. After several months of watching silly demonstrations about every conceivable PC cause, the guy decided to create one of his own, just to see how many earnest young suckers he could get involved. So he painted a number of signs and cooked up some chants and jingles and then started recruiting students for his rally. He gathered quite a gaggle of activists from the ranks of the student body who dutifully went out at his bidding and began the protest. His theme: NO BAD THINGS! DOWN WITH BAD THINGS!
I think of this when I contemplate the Lord’s Prayer because it can sometimes seem like Jesus proposes something like an angelic inversion of the rather obvious point being made in that silly and satirical rally when he commands us to pray “Thy will be done” to the Father. It is not unreasonable to ask, with respect, “What else should we pray for than that God’s will be done? Who isn’t in favor of good things and opposed to bad things?”
I think the reason comes to us very quickly the moment we attempt to get specific. Granted, we want to do God’s will just as we want to get rid of “bad things.” But what exactly and concretely does that mean here and now?
If we are like most people, we sort of go into vapor lock at this point. Indeed, it’s easier to list off various Bad Things we’d like to get rid of than to state positively what we think “God’s will” is. I suspect most of us start with ourselves and our circumstances in trying to discern such matters. What is the will of God for my life? Does God want me to stay in my current job or try for that new one? Get the Ford or the Toyota? Pray more or work harder? Vote for Smith or Jones? Have faith for a miraculous healing for mother’s cancer or ask for the grace to accept the suffering that is coming? All day long we muddle along trying to figure out “God’s will” and feeling slightly silly about it since, after all, who really expects God to reveal his will about whether you should get the red or the blue shirt? If we actually meet people who are really confident that they are tuned into the divine frequency and are Doing God’s Will throughout the day (“God showed me to pick the cream corn, not the whole kernel at Top Foods”), we generally have the sense that we are in the presence of somebody who needs to cut back on the caffeine. So while we approve of “doing God’s will” as a general principle, we’re not at all sure what that actually means on a day-to-day basis.
This is where revelation and the guidance of the Church really come in handy. The Church, in fact, insists that we can know and definitely state certain truths about the will of God. For instance, Our Father “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4). He “is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9; cf. Matthew 18:14). His commandment is “that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34; cf. 1 John 3; 4; Luke 10:25-37). This commandment summarizes all the others and expresses his entire will. As the Catechism of the Church puts it:
“He has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ . . . to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will” (Ephesians 1:9-11). We ask insistently for this loving plan to be fully realized on earth as it is already in heaven. (CCC 2822-2823)
This is where we begin: with the definite fact that God wills to save us, that he wills us to love one another as he has loved us, and that (mysteriously) his will, in Christ, is to “gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-11). It is here that we start. For it is Christ, not our particular perception of our particular circumstances, that really is the central story. We orbit him, not he us.
The striking thing to notice about “Thy will be done” is that it is a prayer—a volitional act and even a participatory act. In some religions, even some forms of Christianity, the will of God tends to be seen as something that cancels out human freedom in a sort of zero-sum game where the more space God takes up, the less space there is for us. Such a conception of the will of God smacks of the Inexorable and our place before it is to submit as a slave to the overwhelming power of a Master. In some religious systems, the will of God is literally all there is. Everything that happens, happens because God positively willed it and our only task is to cringe and call it good, no matter how evil it is. In such systems, the will of God arbitrarily pulls your name out of the inscrutable divine lottery and, if you are chosen. then that’s that. The Irresistible Grace overwhelms you and you can’t help but be saved. If not, too bad for you. God created you because he wills to damn you. The good news is reduced to the proclamation “God might love you and may have sent his Son to die for your sins—if you are lucky enough to be elect.” Your will in the matter is irrelevant.
In contrast to this is the Catholic gospel, which insists that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
Of which more next time.
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