THE UNION OF OUR WILL WITH GOD’S PERMISSIVE WILL IS MADE PRINCIPALLY IN TRIALS
Trials, considered in themselves, certainly cannot be loved. But when we see them in their origin , i.e. divine will and providence which enjoins them, they are infinitely lovable. See, on the ground Moses’s staff was a frightful serpent. See, in his hand it was a miraculous wand (Ex 7). See, the tribulations in themselves are dreadful. But see them as God’s will, they are lovable and delightful. How often we were reluctant to take the remedies and medicines when a doctor or a pharmacist prescribes them. But when they are offered by someone who loves us, love surpasses our dislikes and we take them with joy. Surely, love either removes the bitterness of pain or makes it more pleasant.[1] It is said that in Boetia there is a river in which the fishes appear to be of golden colour. However, taken out from this water they have the same natural colour like any other fish. So afflictions are like that. If we look at them apart from God’s will, they are naturally bitter. But if they are considered as part of God’s eternal, permissive will, they are completely golden, lovable and precious beyond description.
Had Abraham failed to see God’s will in sacrificing his son Isaac, Theotimus, how much sorrow and anguish he would have felt. Since he was able to see in it the permissive will of God, it was golden for him and he embraced it lovingly. If the martyrs had failed to see God’s permissive will in their sufferings, how could they sing in the midst of fetters and flames? The one who really loves God, loves all the divine permissive will, even when things go wrong and he has to face affliction and hardships. In fact one who loves God’s will more in the midst of crosses and sufferings because it is the principal virtue of love which makes the lover suffer for the thing loved.
The stoics, especially Epictetus, based the whole of their philosophy on giving up or putting up with things and, that is to say, in foregoing and desisting the pleasures, delights and honours of the world as well as putting up with insults and enduring sufferings and inconveniences. However, teaching of Christianity, the only true philosophy, has based all its practices on three principles:
Self-denial which is more than abstaining from worldly pleasures: carrying one’s cross which is more than putting up with it; following Our Lord not only by renouncing oneself and carrying one’s cross but also by practising all kinds of good works (Mt 10: 38; 16: 24). However, it is evident that there is not as much love in self denial, nor in deeds as it is in suffering. The Holy Spirit makes it clear in the sacred scripture that Our Lord’s love for us reached its summit in the passion and death he endured for us (Jn 15: 13; Rom 5: 8, 9; 1 Jn 3: 16).
1. To love God’s will in consolation is a good love as long as we really love God’s will and not the consolation of it. Nevertheless, it is love that knows no opposition, no reluctance, and no effort. Certainly, is there anyone who would not love such worthy will which is so attractively presented?
2. To love the will of God, his commandments, counsels, and inspirations, it is a second degree of love which is much more perfect. It carries us forward to renounce and give up our own will. It enables us to abstain from and forego many pleasures but not all of them.
3. To love the sufferings and trials for the love of God is the summit of charity. In this there is nothing lovable but only God’s will. It goes very much against our nature. It leads to more than giving up pleasures but also embrace torments and trouble.
The Satan was well aware that here was the ultimate in refinement of love. He heard God’s own lips describe Job as a just, upright and God fearing man, fleeing from sin (Job 1:8) and steadfast in his innocence. He regarded all these but found them very little in comparison with suffering and afflictions. It was through suffering and affliction that Satan made the final supreme trial of the love of God’s great servant. In order to make those trials severe, he fashioned them out of Job’s loss of all his possessions, all his children, desertion by all his friends, arrogant opposition from his intimate companions and even from his wife. But it was opposition filled with contempt, mockery and reproach. To this Satan added a complex of almost all human maladies, especially a cruel, foul, horrible ulcer all over his body.
Nevertheless, there was Job who is like a king among the miserable ones of the world. He is seated upon a dunghill as upon a throne of misery. He is adorned with sores, ulcer and rottenness in the guise of royal robes befitting kingship. So great was his loneliness, his self abasement that if he had not spoken, no one could know whether Job was a man reduced to a dung-hill or dung-hill was a corruption in the form of human being. But I say again, the great Job as he cries out : shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil as well ( Job 2:10). O God, these words are filled with great love. Theotimus, Job acknowledged that it is from God’s hand that he received those good things, thus testifying that he did not value those things because they were good as they were the gift from the hands of the Lord. Thus he came to the conclusion that he must lovingly endure all misfortune because they came from the same hand of the Lord. It is equally pleasant when it distributes the afflictions as when it gives out consolation. Good things are willingly accepted by everyone, but to accept evil belongs only to perfect love. Love of misfortune is not lovable except out of respect we have for the hand of God that gives it.
A traveller who is afraid of missing the right way walks on in doubt. As he goes along, he sees the surrounding countryside, stops at every turning to ensure that he does not go astray. But that one who is sure of his way goes along cheerfully, fearlessly and briskly. It is exactly the same with love, wishing to go forward according to God’s will by way of consolation. It is always afraid of taking the wrong path. Instead of loving God’s permissive will it loves only the particular pleasure found in the consolation. However, love that would make towards God’s will through distress, goes securely. For there is nothing attractive about distress and there is no difficulty in loving it because it is out of respect for God who sends it.
In springtime hounds make mistakes apparently lacking all sense of smell. It is because the scent of fields and flowers is stronger than that of stag and hare. In the spring time of consolation love has almost no recognition of God’s permissive will since the sense pleasure arising from consolation distracts the attention which it should have for the will of God.
When Our Lord offered St. Catherine of Siena the choice of two crowns, one of gold and the other of thorns, she chose the crown of thorns as more in keeping with love. It is a sure sign of love, said the blessed Angela of Foligno, choosing to suffer. The great apostle St. Paul declared that he does not take any glory except in the cross, in infirmity, in persecution (Gal 6: 14; 2 Cor 12: 51).
____________________
[1] TLG, Bk VI, Ch. 14.