We continue our deep dive into THE HEART OF CATHOLIC PRAYER.
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None of what we have said so far is to say that we must only settle for generalities about God’s will and cannot know specifics. The Christian tradition is chockablock with the reality of specific guidance given by the Holy Spirit to his people. I even mean guidance of the “Yes, go in that doorway/No, get the creamed corn” variety when it is really necessary to fulfilling the law of love. The world resounds with the testimony of Christians who, setting out to do the law of love, have received very clear and specific indications from God about what the next practical step should be.
How do they do this? Most of the time, the guidance comes in the form of the practice of the virtues (especially prudence), the use of common sense and through reliance on the tutelage of the Church in the midst of specific circumstances. As C.S. Lewis points out, God loves platitudes and common sense. Of a proposed course of action He generally urge us to ask very simple questions like “Is it righteous? Is it prudent? Is it possible?” and not “Is this how popular opinion is trending on Twitter?”
But of course, as scripture points out, there exist other wills in the universe besides those of God and ourselves—demonic as well as human wills bent on deception. And deception can be rather easy in our case since we are fallen and our own wills are divided. That is why prayer is described as a “battle” in the Catechism and this is why Jesus so often insists on our applying ourselves to the struggle of prayer. Prayer is one of the principal means by which God purifies us and brings us through to the reality of a single will where we know the freedom and joy of St. Francis, who says with simplicity, “I want what God wants. That is why I am merry!”
Such reliance on common sense and ordinary human virtue is not meant to deny the reality of the supernatural in prayer. In addition to the common human ways in which God guides us in prayer via prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude and so forth, he sometimes see fit to reveal his will via supernatural bells and whistles:
And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing beseeching him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Act 16:6-10)
We can ask for such guidance in our day-to-day affairs, but we ought not to demand that God perform special effects as a general rule, lest we neglect the weightier matters of the law and become like the Pharisees who sought signs not because they lacked them, but because they didn’t like where the signs Jesus had already given were pointing. In short, as we seek to know God’s will, we should be cautious of the human tendency to seek signs, not in order to find things out, but in order to keep from finding things out.
The great model for us in all this discernment of God’s will is the Blessed Virgin, who obeys God’s will perfectly by the grace of her Son. In doing so, she stands in a peculiarly helpful place for us because, by divine design, she does something that even Jesus her Son cannot do: she shows us what a disciple of Jesus looks like. Mary’s “Yes” is the Yes, not of the Incarnate Son, but of a disciple who doesn’t know what is going to happen next, who doesn’t quite understand what is going on when Jesus disappears at the age of twelve (yet who trusts anyway) (cf. Luke 2:41-51), who is worried about his safety when the rumors start flying that he is crazy (and yet trusts) (cf. Mark 3:21-35), who has to stand there and watch when her whole world is shattered by the crucifixion (but does not despair) (cf. John 19:25). Hers is the act of saying “Thy will be done” in that one-foot-in-front-of-the-other way which marks our dark and mysterious path through this world, where we are not shown the whole road, but only have light for the next step. Her “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) sums up the whole way of obedience to the will of God.
Mary wills God’s will alone. She lives out Kierkegaard’s great observation that “Purity of heart is to will one thing”[1] and Dante’s great truth, “In his will, our peace.”[2] In doing so, she becomes a sort of miniature figurine of the Church, displaying the perfect freedom that comes from perfect obedience to God. For that, of course, is the point of Christian obedience to the will of God: freedom, not enslavement. As Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). Our freedom is an end, not a means, because we are ends, not means. God did not create and redeem us for some other goal to which we are merely stepping-stones. He has no ulterior motives for our salvation. He does not, as our culture does, treat us like utilitarian tools for some other purpose. Rather, as the Church teaches, man is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake” (CCC 356). Because of this, obedience to the will of God can be and indeed must be seen as the way toward the full flourishing of the human person according to the law of love. That is why St. Augustine could so cheerily summarize Christian surrender to the will of God this way, “Once for all then, a short precept is given you: Love, and do what you will.”[3]
[1] Soren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing (New York, NY: HarperOne, 1956).
[2] Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Paradiso, Canto III, Line 85.
[3] Augustine of Hippo, Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John 8. Available on-line at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170207.htm as of March 4, 2011.
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