Walk Humbly With Your God - Fr. Andrew Apostoli C.F.R.

Walk Humbly With Your God (eBook)

Simple Steps to a Virtuous Life

Fr. Andrew Apostoli C.F.R. (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
192 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-366-0 (ISBN)

After the World Trade Towers went down in New York, Father Apostoli ministered at the morgue set up at Ground Zero. When search teams discovered the body of a police officer or firefighter, an honor guard formed and gathered the body with great reverence. For Father Apostoli, these moments vividly captured the unspoken code of these heroic public servants: 'We go in together, we come out together.' Christians, if they are to have any impact in today's world, have something of the same code: we fight the good fight, side by side, ready to lay down our lives for one another. Such heroism doesn't come naturally. As Walk Humbly With Your God points out, it is in the day-to-day training, in taking the simple steps to holiness, that heroism becomes second nature. Father Apostoli provides an inspirational guide to conquering our faults, growing in prayer and acquiring the virtues that enable us to walk with God and live for others.

After the World Trade Towers went down in New York, Father Apostoli ministered at the morgue set up at Ground Zero. When search teams discovered the body of a police officer or firefighter, an honor guard formed and gathered the body with great reverence. For Father Apostoli, these moments vividly captured the unspoken code of these heroic public servants: "e;We go in together, we come out together."e; Christians, if they are to have any impact in today's world, have something of the same code: we fight the good fight, side by side, ready to lay down our lives for one another. Such heroism doesn't come naturally. As Walk Humbly With Your God points out, it is in the day-to-day training, in taking the simple steps to holiness, that heroism becomes second nature. Father Apostoli provides an inspirational guide to conquering our faults, growing in prayer and acquiring the virtues that enable us to walk with God and live for others.

ChapterSeven

• Discerning God’s Will •

All faithful Christians want to know how best to serve God and His people; they wonder if what they are doing is pleasing to Him and what His will is for their lives. Discerning God’s will isn’t always easy, but it’s always important. Why? Because anything we do has meaning and value only if it is according to God’s will. Jesus’ own experience stresses this. He said, on coming into the world, that “I have come to do thy will, O God” (Hebrews 10:7). His nearly last words on the cross were, “It is finished” (John 19:30), a reference to His having fulfilled the will of His heavenly Father by completing His redemptive mission on earth. From beginning to end, doing the will of His heavenly Father was the focus and driving force of every moment of His life.

Simple Steps to Knowing God’s Will

We can become more adept at knowing God’s will if we follow a few basic guidelines. First, it is essential that we pray daily for the grace to know and do God’s will faithfully. Jesus Himself taught us to pray to the Father that “Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Saint Paul prayed unceasingly for his Colossian converts to “be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” so they would “lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God”(Colossians 1:9–10, NRSV). Ask the Holy Spirit to act in and through you and to keep you from doing anything that would offend Him. Mother Teresa of Calcutta prayed daily that if she did anything that day that was not according to God’s will, it would fall apart before her eyes.

Second, keep in mind that God usually does not reveal His complete will to us all at once, especially if we are beginners in the spiritual life. Rather than getting the big picture, we more often get just a piece or two of the puzzle. When the Lord called Saint Francis, for example, the saint asked Him what he was to do. Jesus simply told him to go back to Assisi and it would be told him what he was to do. This was only the first step in a long conversion process.

Once we take the first step, however, God usually reveals His will gradually as we are able to grasp its full meaning. By spiritual enlightenment and lived experience, we become more aware of what God is doing in our lives or what He is asking of us. If we stop to think about it, many of us realize that we understand God’s will more clearly now than two years ago, and two years ago we understood it more clearly than two years before that.

When Saint Francis heard Jesus tell him from the cross of San Damiano, “Go and rebuild my Church which as you see is falling into ruin,” the saint set about repairing dilapidated chapels with stone and mortar. Later on, the Holy Spirit helped him realize he was called to rebuild faith and love in the hearts of the faithful, the Church as the mystical body of Christ.

Two Aspects of God’s Will

Saint Francis de Sales viewed the will of God under two aspects. The first he called God’s signified will, by which God reveals what to do or what not to do. God makes this known to us through His commandments and prohibitions, His Church’s teachings and the duties of our particular state in life. When we follow God’s signified will, we say we are “doing” or “fulfilling” His will. This is where proper discernment begins, by doing God’s will as far as we know it right here and now.

If we follow God’s signified will, we will find that, as the saying goes, we bloom where we’re planted. This has important benefits. For one, we won’t waste present opportunities because we’re looking for some extraordinary mystical experience to show us what God wants of us in the future. By doing God’s signified will we learn to appreciate the importance of the small, even seemingly insignificant tasks the Lord sets before us. This prepares us to do the bigger tasks when they come along: “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10).

Further, as we accomplish God’s signified will, we are working toward achieving any hidden goal the Lord has in mind. Cardinal John Henry Newman, the famous English convert of the nineteenth century, echoed this truth when he wrote: “God has created me to do Him some definite service…I have my mission—I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next…I shall do good, I shall do His work…while not intending [as in, realizing] it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.”1

We shouldn’t fret if we don’t have a clear understanding of everything we think God expects of us. If someone gives us directions over the phone to a place we’ve never been, we’ll get there if we follow the directions, even if the landscape is unfamiliar. The Ten Commandments are God’s directions. If we follow them, we’ll reach our destination (heaven) even if we don’t always recognize the landmarks—the changing landscape of events and tasks in our personal lives—we pass along the way.

Finally, doing God’s will insofar as we know it is a sign of our love for Him. As this love grows, our purity of heart increases. Jesus says that purity of heart enables us to see God (see Matthew 5:8) in the sense that we recognize His presence and actions in our lives. This gift, a result of our maturing in the Spirit, sharpens our spiritual vision and makes us more capable of recognizing God’s will in specific instances.

Saint Francis de Sales also talked about God’s will of good pleasure. This includes, first, those events and circumstances that God directly intends and brings about by the operation of His divine providence. These situations are not dependent on our own efforts. As the saying goes, “Man proposes, but God disposes.” In these situations, we speak of “accepting” God’s will. Divine providence springs from God’s infinite love and wisdom, by which He directs the course of events for His greater glory and our salvation.

Sometimes we are disappointed or confused by such circumstances until it becomes evident what God really intends. We’ve all experienced this. We start a project with plan A, but before we know it God is moving us mysteriously into plan B. (As Mother Teresa used to say, if you want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans.) We must be ready to abandon our own preconceived ideas when they do not correspond to God’s. For example, Saint Paul, who certainly had the guidance of the Holy Spirit, tried twice to evangelize certain areas of Asia Minor but the Holy Spirit prevented him. Later on, he received a vision to go to Greece, with the result that the gospel came to Europe. We want to avoid blind stubbornness at these times and acquiesce, instead, to God’s will. Doing so will bring many unforeseen blessings.

The will of God’s pleasure also includes instances where He permits events to happen that He does not directly intend or want. These would include moral evils such as unjust wars, violence, religious desecration and sexual immorality, all of which are contrary to His signified will. Because God gives us free will, He allows us to use our freedom even to do evil. From this evil, however, God will ultimately draw good: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). This aspect of God’s will is called His permissive will. Original sin is a leading example of this permissive will of God. God never intended Adam and Eve to sin but He permitted their sin to happen to show us an even greater love, the outpouring of His mercy in the incarnation of His divine Son as Lord and Savior. The events that God permits to happen often bring disturbance, even injustice and suffering, and so we speak of “submitting” to God’s will, bearing patiently what God sends.

Guidance

Saint Teresa of Avila put a high priority on wise guidance in discerning God’s will for our lives. None of us can see ourselves completely. We are a mystery, even to ourselves, with blind spots due to our ignorance or prejudice or similar shortcomings. A wise guide can easily step back and get a better look at a problem or question that we are too close to. A guide can help us question our motives, keep us from panicking when we are in fear and help us find our way back when we stray. A guide who is open to the light of the Holy Spirit can help us interpret things that might otherwise be baffling.

When Samuel the prophet was a young boy living at the temple of God at Shiloh, he heard the Lord call him. Not recognizing the Lord’s voice, he misinterpreted the call. It was the priest, Eli, who finally realized what was happening and gave Samuel the sound advice that if he heard the voice again, he was to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9, NRSV).

This advice to young Samuel sums up the attitude we should have when seeking God’s will. We want to prepare ourselves to hear the Lord when He speaks and then, in humble service, be ready to faithfully carry out His...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	24.1.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-10	1-63582-366-8 / 1635823668
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-366-0 / 9781635823660

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