Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Thursday, December 21, 2000
Thy will, not my will, be done
By Father Richard Rice, SJ
Catholic News Service
1
.t is sometimes so diffi
cult to realize that the peti
tion is “Thy will be done,”
not “my” will be done.
I led a community of
family and friends in cel
ebrating the sacrament of
the sick with Rosalie. As
one of her family said,
“From the housetop we are
praying, ‘Thy will be done,’
but in the basement we are
pleading, ‘Heal Rosalie of
her cancer.”’
Our will was her physi
cal healing. Her funeral a
year later revealed that
God’s will was her deeper
healing and that of her
family and friends in her
death.
Few words reveal the
humanity of Jesus so com
pletely as the agonizing
prayer in the Garden of
Gethsemane, “Father, if
you are willing, take this
cup away from me, still not
my will but yours be done”
(Luke 22:42). We are a
long way at this point from
the serene hillside of Gali
lee where Jesus had taught
his followers to pray “like
this: Our Father ... thy
will be done” (Matthew
6:10).
On that Galilee hillside,
it had been easy for Jesus
to say the words; now it
was excruciatingly diffi
cult for him to pray them.
We all, like Jesus, have
known both the ease and
the agony of a central peti
tion of the Our Father,
“Thy will be done.”
I have prayed that my
nephew Brian might star
in basketball. He basically took up
space on the bench. I was slow to
admit that the humiliation was a
great grace for him and for me.
I have prayed for two young
women that they would meet men
who would be suitable marriage
partners. Both are still single, hav
ing to call on all their inner re
sources to live the single life grace
fully. (That one I do plan to question
God about at the end.)
As I reflect on the conversation
God and I have been engaged in all
my life, I realize I often have been
given nothing that I expected, but
everything that I have most deeply
wanted. I and those I have been pray
ing for have been given peace, humil
ity, integrity, love and patience.
After 59 years I am beginning to
realize that God’s track record is
quite amazing and now, more and
more, I am simply saying, “Thy will
be done for Megan and for Molly to
day. You know so much better than I
what they need, and you care for
them so much more than I do, much
as I love my dear nieces.”
I am saying much the same when
my prayer turns to India and Paki
stan and Israel and Palestine. Trust
CNS photo by Bill Wittman
is built on a continuity of care, and I
slowly am realizing that God does
care for this universe which he
breathes into existence at every mo
ment.
■ ■ ■
The words “thy will be done” are
mirrored in other great prayers and
statements. For so many traditions
FOODFORTHOUGHT
realize that it contains the first and
greatest submission of the creature to
the Creator.
For example, St. Ignatius of
Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits,
ends his “Spiritual Exercises” with
the famous prayer, “Take, Lord, and
receive all my liberty, my memory,
my entire ‘will.’”
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And the third of the 12 Steps —
the principles followed in Alcoholics
Anonymous, Al-Anon, Parents
Anonymous and other groups — is:
“Make a decision to turn our ‘will’
and our lives over to the care of
God.” Simple words, but not always
easy to say.
■ ■ ■
One of the greatest gifts God has
given us as human creatures is our
freedom and our wills, the power to
choose, to make decisions. Usually we
presume our wills and God’s are the
same. As long as we are experiencing
the fruits of the Holy Spirit, such as
love, joy, peace, patience and gentle
ness (Galatians 5:22,23), that pre
sumption is just fine. The fruits of the
Holy Spirit are God’s seal of approval
on our choices.
The problem comes when things do
not go our way, we do not get the
position we applied for, or our child
does not get accepted by the college
she so wanted to attend. We now be
gin to experience the fruits of the evil
spirit that St. Paul also carefully enu-
hen we experience our
agonies in our gardens, it can
be consoling to remember
that Jesus was there in his
life and is with us now in
ours.
merates: jealousy, rage, selfishness,
dissensions, factions, envy (Galatians
5:20,21).
At that moment, pray God we real
ize that our will and God’s will are not
harmonious. We now have the choice
to surrender or to manipulate, to en
trust ourselves or to become “control
freaks,” as our young like to say.
When we experience our agonies in
our gardens, it can be consoling to
remember that Jesus was there in his
life and is with us now in ours.
(Jesuit Father Rice is a spiritual
director with Loyola, a spiritual re
newal resource in St. Paul, Minn.)
It goes against the grain to say “thy will be done” — at least it often feels that way.
We value our ability to plan things, put things in order and accept responsibility for ourselves and others who
depend on us.
I think we learn from early childhood that exercising control over ourselves is praiseworthy, as is clarity about
what we want in life.
1 also think most of us sometimes are sure that we know what is best — for us, for our children, for our
neighborhoods, even for our country.
So those words from the Our Father, “thy will be done,”pose a challenge. If nothing else, they suggest that the
Lord’s Prayer shouldn’t be taken too lightly. What are we really saying?
We’re not saying that we shouldn’t accept our responsibilities or be clear about our priorities. But we are saying
something important about the limits of our understanding and about the real extent of our control over people and
events.
And we’re saying that God is actively present in our world, albeit sometimes in perplexing ways.
I suspect it is important to acknowledge at some point that the words “thy will be done” seem to go against the
grain.
I also suspect that people grow in spirituality when they begin to grasp why those words really don’t go against
the grain.
44 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!