“God willing and the creek don’t rise…”  Perhaps we have all at one time or another heard this colloquial phrase that expresses our understanding that not everything in this life is under our direct control.  There are powers at work that are greater than our own personal desires.  If we stubbornly set our will against these greater powers we would be foolish and we could put ourselves and others in danger.  If the creek rises and we still insist on trying to cross it we could be swept up in the overwhelming currents and lose our lives.  Reason and wisdom would dictate that we must abandon our own personal plans and desires to these higher powers that we cannot control.  In our spiritual life and journey of faith we can express our acceptance of these truths in the simple expression, “Deo volente” (God willing), or simply, “Please God.”  Mary expressed this personal abandonment to God’s will and plan for her life in the simple phrase, “fiat mihi secundum Verbum tuum” (let it be done to me according to your Word) and we continue to pray for this attitude of abandonment to the Divine will when we pray the Our Father and say, “fiat voluntas tua” or “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

     On our spiritual journey of perfection we move beyond a mere casual acceptance of God’s will and we find that we are called to truly “abandon” ourselves to God’s will and purpose for our lives.  We recognize in faith that there is a Divine order that is at work in all things and that this Divine order is governed by love.  God’s will is for our salvation, our holiness, our perfection and for our greater good.  Abandonment to God’s will frees us from what Pope John Paul II termed the “tyranny of relativism” or “subjectivism” and allows us to seek a revealed Truth in God’s will for our lives.  This leads us away from the “many paths” that are twisting and winding and confusing to us and directs us to “one path” that is a straight path that will lead us to union with God.  This one path is a way of holiness.  Jean Pierre de Caussade stated simply in his book, Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, that, “In reality, holiness may be reduced to one point only:  fidelity to the Order of God.”

     Our first reading from the Wisdom of Solomon takes up this fundamental question, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the LORD intends?  For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans…Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high?  And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.”  We can come to know “God’s counsel” or His will through divine wisdom and the discerning gift of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit that “overshadows” us and reveals to us God’s Word and Will is the sure guide that leads us to “things of heaven”. 

     In order to be free to follow this “Holy Way” of preferring God’s will to all other things Father de Caussade proposes:  “There is but one thing to do: to purify our hearts, to detach ourselves from creatures, and abandon ourselves entirely to God.”  Jesus is speaking of this truth in our gospel today when he asserts that if we wish to be his disciples then we must be detached from all earthly constraints upon our life, our parents, relatives and even our own selfishness.  To open the heart and will to God we must first free it of our attachments to all other demands upon us.  Fr. De Caussade goes on to say, “In order to reach the highest stage of perfection, the crosses sent by Providence, which are provided by their state at every moment, open to them a surer and far quicker road than extraordinary states and works.”  Here we see the wisdom of the words of Jesus in the gospel when he asserts that we must take up our crosses to follow him.  The cross is a way of purification that leads us to the freedom of the children of God who entrust themselves wholly to Divine Providence and seek to be filled only with His divine love.

     True discipleship costs us everything and Jesus says that we must be willing to figure those costs before setting out on the journey.  On the other hand, when we make the requisite sacrifices of our natural possessions, we receive from God his divine, supernatural love and grace, we come to possess God himself and eternal life as our inheritance.  So, if you are figuring in dabbling in the divine mysteries of heavenly realities, know that it will cost you, but it is truly worth the price of admission!