Jan 16 Tue
Obeying God’s Will.
As the New Year begins, we behold Jesus asking us to prepare our hearts and put aside everything that does not accord with God's will. May our hearts be fully converted to God. May he be the only goal of our intentions and the sole object of our affections. May our hearts show no hesitation in the face of hardship, but burn ever more ardently, consumed by love for God.
St. Josemaría asks us “never to forget the lesson given to us by the Holy Family. St Joseph had great love for freedom, and great respect for God's will. He didn't know what that will was. He came to know it later, when he realized that the Blessed Virgin was carrying the Child. Knowing this, he did not want to stain her reputation. He loved God's will even without understanding it. He thus earned the special affection of the most holy Trinity, who sent him an Angel to explain that all this was God's doing. St Joseph, that chaste, pure, clean man, loves God's freedom. He loves God's will and fully accepts it."
“Nor did our Lady understand when the Angel told her that this was to be a wondrous event, a marvelous divine work. After looking into it as carefully as she could –how can this come about, since I know not man? – and after learning the wondrous fashion in which it would be done, her reply was: ‘Ecce ancilla’. The Blessed Virgin loved the will of God..."
“The time came for Jesus to show himself as the Son of God, and he left them for three days. When they met up again, his Mother affectionately reproached him: ‘Son, why have you treated us so?’ On hearing Jesus' reply, the Holy Family again accepted God's will, by loving that freedom, and fulfilling the divine will."
Our love for God's will is shown in deeds. Men do their own will and not God's when they do what they want instead of what God commands.
“Now, in front of the infant Jesus, we can continue our personal examination of conscience. Are we ready to try to make our life a model and example to our brothers, the rest of men, our equals? Are we ready to be other Christs? It's not enough to say that we are. … Are you attentive to the Father's will, so as to be able to encourage everyone else to share the good, noble, divine and human values of the redemption? Are you living the life of Christ, in your everyday life in the middle of the world?"
Let us rejoice with the Virgin Mary, contemplating her most faithful response to God's will. Through her, the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. Let us ask our Mother that we may not “lack the faith, nor the courage, nor the daring, to carry out the will of our Jesus."
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