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Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy
| Pete Vere and Sandra Miesel
God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins
| Thomas Crean, O.P.
Socrates Meets Descartes
| Peter Kreeft
Sermon in a Sentence: Saint Thomas Aquinas
| John McClernon
New Outpourings of the Spirit
| Joseph Ratzinger
Meet Henri De Lubac
| Rudolf Voderholzer
Marian Devotion in the Domestic Church
| Catherine & Peter Fournier
Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology
| Maximilian Heinrich Heim
The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Adventures
| Adrian Fortescue
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Letter to the Hebrews
| Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch
Chastity, Poverty and Obedience
| Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.
The Blessing of Christmas
| Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Chance or Purpose?: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith
| Chrisoph Cardinal Schšnborn
Island of the World: A Novel
| Michael O'Brien
The Order of Things
| James V. Schall, S.J.
The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand
| Paul Kengor & Patricia Clark Doerner
Seek that Which is Above
| Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church
| Pope Benedict XVI
God and His Image: An Outline of Biblical Theology
| Dominique Barthelemey
An Invitation to Faith: An A to Z Primer on the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI
| Pope Benedict XVI
Mother Benedict: Foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis
| Antoinette Bosco
Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age
| Vincent Twomey
Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed
| Fr. Milton Walsh
Christians in China: A.D. 600-2000
| Jean Charbonnier
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Supernatural Will Power: A Lenten Reflection | Carl E. Olson | IgnatiusInsight.com
Print-friendly
version
We Americans admire people with strong will power. We talk with respect
about those special people who have "the will to succeed" and we often
hear the optimistic saying: "Where theres a will, theres a
way."
Its not that the will is bad, of course. We all have a will, given
to us by God. It is that faculty by which we choose a course of action
and make decisions. As we all know from experience, the will can choose
good or it can choose evil. And not only can we will to sin, we can completely
forgetor ignore, as is usually the casethat our will is not
the most important one in existence.
Which is one reason the third petition of the Our Father"Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven"is so helpful during Lent, a
time that continually challenges us to choose between the perfect will
of the Father and our imperfect will.
Its not by coincidence that Lent begins with a cross on Ash Wednesday
and leads to the Cross of Good Friday. The cross is all about the will.
Not about a will to succeed, or about exerting our own will power, but
of surrendering our will to the Father. After all, no one gets up on a
cross because they feel like it. No, they have to willfully choose to
do so.
Jesus is the perfect model of the surrender and
trust required; He epitomizes the humility demanded. Although the Son
"existed in the form of God," Paul explains in his epistle to the Philippians,
"he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped." Instead,
he "humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death
on a cross."
At the beginning of his ministry, during His forty days in the desert,
Jesus rejected the temptations of Satan. Three years later at the end
of His ministry, on the evening He would be betrayed in a garden, He again
rejected the temptation to turn away from the Fathers will: "My
Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done."
What was the Fathers will for Jesus and what is it for us today?
When we pray for the Fathers will to "be done on earth as it is
in heaven," what exactly are we asking for? Put simply, the redemption
of creation and the salvation of man. In reciting the Our Father, the
Church is praying that God will bring about the final completion of His
plan of salvation. The Fathers will is that "all men be saved" and
"come to the knowledge of the truth."
God desires that no one should perish, but that all will know Him. This
doesnt mean that man cannot reject God, or that there is no hell.
It does make clear, however, the depths of Gods love for His wayward
children and the lengths He will go to in order to save them.
The immeasurably deep and wide plan of the Father has been initiated through
the Son, who in turn has entrusted its message to His Body, the Church.
"To carry out the will of the Father," stated the Second Vatican Council,
"Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us
the mystery of that kingdom."

Mankind now has access to the Father, through
the crucified and resurrected Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We
are now able to enter into Gods will and, Peter states, become "partakers
of the divine nature." Heaven and earth were once separated by sin, they
are now joined by the Redeemer who is both God and man.
This wondrous plan of salvation is not just for us and a select group
of friends, but is meant for the entire world. St. Augustine states that
we must pray that Gods will is accomplished in sinners also, not
just in the saints. One way this happens, he explains, is by our prayers
for our enemies. Thats a truly Lenten task: How many of us naturally
desire to pray for our enemies and hope for their salvation? How many
of us, by our own strength, love those who annoy, irritate, anger, and
frustrate us?
Lent is a call to love; love is the heart of God and of His will. The
Catechism remarks that the commandment to love one another as ourselves
summarizes all the other commandments "and expresses [Gods] entire
will."
To the world, the Cross is an embarrassment and a scandal. To Christians,
it is love in action. The world sees a dying, bloody man; we see the Son
of God with open arms, reaching out to embrace the entire world in love"on
earth as it is in heaven."
By gazing on the Cross, our Lenten journey stays on course. By contemplating
the sacrifice of our Savior, we begin to comprehend the will of the Father
and how to choose it. "United with Jesus and with the power of the Holy
Spirit," the Catechism states, "we can surrender our will to him
and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing
to the Father."
Any reflection on doing the Fathers will would be lacking without
considering Mary, the Mother of God. "Let it be to me according to your
word," she said in complete obedience to the Father. She knows His will;
she happily accepted her vital role in His plan of salvation, a perfect
model for each of us. "By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon
ourselves to the will of God together with her."
C. S. Lewis once wrote, "There are only two kinds of people in the end:
those who say to God, Thy will be done; and those to whom
God says, in the end, Thy will be done."
Those are the choices. We can either thrive in the Lenten desert by embracing
the Fathers will, or we can destroy ourselves by pursuing mirages
and dust devils. "The world is passing away, and also its lusts," the
Apostle John observes, "but the one who does the will of God abides forever."
Now that is true will power.
(This article was originally published in the March 14, 2004 edition
of Our Sunday Visitor
newspaper.)
Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:
Why God is Father and Not Mother | Mark Brumley
The "End Times" Are Here! A Lenten Reflection | Carl E. Olson
Knowing and Sanctifying His Name: A Lenten Reflection | Carl E. Olson
Lent and "Our Father": The Path of Prayer | Carl E. Olson
Seeking Deep Conversion | From
Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer |
Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
"Lord, teach us to pray" | From
Earthen Vessels | Gabriel Bunge, O.S.B.
Seeing Jesus in the Gospel of John |
Excerpts from On The Way to Jesus Christ | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Encountering Christ in the Gospel |
Excerpt from My Jesus | Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
Understanding
The Hierarchy of Truths | Douglas Bushman, STL
Carl E. Olson is the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
He is the co-author of The
Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code and author
of Will
Catholics Be "Left Behind"? He has written for numerous
Cathlic periodicals and is a regular contributor to National Catholic
Register and Our Sunday Visitor newspapers.
He resides in a top secret location in the Northwest somewhere between Portland,
Oregon and Sacramento, California with his wife, Heather, and two children.
Visit his personal web site at www.carl-olson.com.
Visit
the Insight Scoop Blog and read the latest posts and comments
by IgnatiusInsight.com staff and readers about current events, controversies,
and news in the Church!
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G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the finest Christian authors and apologists
of the past two hundred years. Raised as an agnostic, he embraced Christianity as a young man, ultimately entering the Catholic Church
in 1922. He wrote hundreds of essays, as well as novels, short stories, poetry, apologetics, literary
criticism, and nearly everything else imaginable. Dale Ahlquist, president and co-founder of the American
Chesterton Society and author of
G.K Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense, writes, "Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism,
history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked
by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless
today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away paper." Read more
about the life and work of this remarkable thinker, author, and apologist.
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Confessions of an Ex-Feminist
by Lorraine V. Murray
Confessions is the honest and heart-rending account of a woman who was born into a Catholic family, attended parochial schools and
fully embraced the beliefs of her faith, but ran into major roadblocks in college. Amidst the radical feminist college environment of
the 1960's, she lost her faith, and her morality, jumping aboard the bandwagon of "free love." She indulged in a series of love relationships
in college, all of which crashed and burned. Despite the obvious contradiction between feminist teachings and her own experience,
Murray still believed she had to free herself from the yoke of tradition. Attaining a doctorate in philosophy, with an emphasis on the
feminist writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Murray taught philosophy in college. For many years, she launched a personal vendetta against
God and the Catholic Church in the classroom, trying to persuade students that God did not exist, mocking values Catholics hold dear,
and touted feminism as the cure for many social ills. When she discovered she was pregnant, Murray followed the route that feminists
offer as a solution for unmarried women. Much to her surprise, her abortion was a shattering emotional experience, which she grieved
over for years. It was the first tragic chink in her feminist armor.
Read more about Confessions of an Ex-Feminist, or
read an excerpt from the book.
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