29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Oct. 20, 2019
CollectSt. Anthony, Bronx, N.Y.
St. Theresa, Bronx, N.Y.
“Grant that we may always conform our will to
yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart” (Collect).
The Collect we prayed at the beginning of Mass has
2 parts. In the 1st petition we prayed
God that our wills might always conform with his—which is a prayer we make
every day, maybe many times a day: “Thy
will be done.” That doesn’t mean only
“may everyone else do what you wish, O God,” but also “may I do your
will, O God.”
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| The Angelus (Jean-Francois Millet) |
In the 2d petition we prayed that we might
sincerely serve almighty God—serve him not just in our external behavior, altho
that’s essential for us as followers of Christ, but also to serve him
internally, to conform our wills, our attitudes, and our intentions to whatever
it is God desires of us.
About a week ago I had a conversation with an old
friend whose husband had died a few months ago.
Altho he was of retirement age, he never really retired; rather, he got
seriously engaged in some social service volunteer work. Consequently, he never got to do the
carpentry projects he’d planned, nor did the couple get to enjoy some
anticipated final years together. And in
his last months, he came down with a somewhat mysterious illness that caused
him both suffering and frustration. Both
husband and wife had to accept something different from God than they’d planned
or expected. It seems to me they did so
as well as one can hope for. “Thy will
be done.”
My widowed friend wasn’t done dealing with all
that goes with the passing of a spouse—legal paperwork and years of accumulated
material possessions and memories. She
had a medical situation of her own and had surgery lined up for Columbus Day;
and then she got sick and had to put off the surgery till Lord knows when. Once again, an occasion for conforming her
will to God’s, which she strives for.
God’s will—his positive will or his passive
will—so often make demands of all of us.
His positive will is what he requires of us, e.g., the duties of our
state of life or the keeping of the commandments. His passive will is what he allows to befall
us, e.g., sickness, the loss of someone we love, the trouble that Mother Nature
or some person or the Astros[1]
inflicts upon us.
The Responsorial Psalm expressed our complete
trust in God: “He neither slumbers nor
sleeps, the guardian of Israel. The Lord
… is beside you at your right hand. The
Lord will guard you from all evil; he will guard your life” (121:3-5,7). If we have that complete trust in God, we do
accept his will always and try to conform our will, our desires, and our
intentions with his, even when it’s difficult, even when it requires us to
change our plans, even when it costs us sacrifice. Because that’s a challenge, we do need to
pray every day, “Thy will be done.” If
we do pray, “Thy will be done” sincerely, “will God be slow to answer?” (Luke
18:7). Will he not come quickly to the
aid of Christ’s faithful servants (cf. 18:8)?
With God’s aid, we can “conform our will” to
his. With the power of the Holy Spirit
whom the Father and the Son send to us, we can overcome our own inertia, our
selfishness, our shortsightedness and become more like Jesus. Jesus always did his Father’s will, always
served God’s plan “in sincerity of heart.”
In the Garden of Gethsemane he struggled to conform his human will with
his Father’s but did surrender his will to his Father: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup
away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). At the beginning of his public ministry, he’d
told his disciples, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to
finish his work” (John 4:34). On the
cross his dying words were, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Such sincerity of heart is part of our prayer this
morning/afternoon, too: that we may
always “serve your majesty in sincerity of heart”; that we may gladly carry out
whatever God asks of us each day, not grumbling, not dragging our feet—whether
what God asks involves our ordinary responsibilities of family life or work or
good citizenship, or something more unusual, maybe involving our health, our
family relationships, what’s going on at work, travel plans, bad weather—all
the many things that we have to deal with day by day.
In all situations, ordinary or extraordinary, we
ask, “What is God asking of me now?
What’s his will for me at this moment?”
Perhaps we consult a spiritual advisor or another trusted
confidant. We pray to the Holy Spirit,
the Wisdom of God. We pray that we may,
as St. Paul urged St. Timothy, “remain faithful to what you have learned and
believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you
have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for
salvation thru faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:14-15). We trust that our Lord Jesus remains with us
to guide and strengthen us; he loves us, walks with us, wants only to keep us
with him happily for eternity.
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