Transcription
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
So, as always, let's take a few minutes to recollect, to just quieten our minds, enter into that silence with the Lord, waiting on what he would like to do, and we fuse ourselves into his will. We billocate to the Holy Trinity to give them all the praise and glory, especially on this their feast day. We ask them to inspire us to speak their words, to listen with their ears. We pray for the coming of the kingdom in our hearts and in the world.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Mary, Queen of the Divine Will, pray for us.
And on this 31st of May, for those completing their retreat in the kingdom, we surrender our souls and our will to Mary.
The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I'm not going to talk about the Trinity today because it's only a couple of months back when we looked at a series of talks on relationship, and of course, the Trinity is the center of everything. Three persons, one God. All the beautiful prayers we had today, not only in Mass but in all the aspects of the liturgy, are so, so beautiful. Unity and diversity, and that when God creates, we the technical word is *add extra*. It's a theological term. It's very straightforward. *Ad extra* means when God is operating outside of himself, and *ad intra* is the inner life of God. So whenever he creates *ad extra*, he creates with goodness, truth, and beauty.
So we are, by the very fact of our existence, placed in relationship to God. We cannot understand ourselves except in relationship. But what I thought I'd look on to look at a bit tonight from that, what flows from that, it means that within our heart is planted a desire, a desire for God. St. Augustine says that the whole Christian life is one of holy desire. The whole Christian life is one of holy desire. And we know how much this comes up in the divine will because Jesus tells us that we must simply desire it, wish to live it, and God will do the rest. So desire is fundamental. It's, it's central to our journeys. So it seems to me worthwhile looking at a bit more detail about that.
So just to remind us, St. Augustine says the whole Christian life is one of holy desire. So we are desiring, we're seeking and searching for our Creator, the one who loves us. Now, I love whenever we use a word, it's always useful to go back and look at where the word comes from. It's whenever you come across a word, even if it's a simple word, if you're doing a *lectio* on scripture, it's often worthwhile breaking the word down. So, desire is very unusual. It comes from the Latin word *desiderare* via the French *désirer*, which can be broken into *de* (day) and *siderare*. So it literally means "waiting for what the stars will bring." So it's a pretty amazing word. Waiting for what the stars can bring. So for the Romans, the word comes from the idea that you would go up and look at the stars and wait patiently for the stars to guide you or provide what you're longing for.
So desire is a fundamental part of our existence. It's got in it the idea of power. In other words, an engine, something that motivates us. It's got in it the idea of longing, of searching and seeking. The Catechism, section 27, says: "The desire for God is written in the human heart because man is created by God and for God. And God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness. He never stops searching. The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through love and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his Creator."
It's an amazing section of the Catechism that right at the beginning it echoes, or rather John Paul echoed that when he said, "Only Jesus can truly reveal man to himself." So this is in relation to the feast day today that we, the Trinity has placed in us, in our will, our intellect, and our memory. And remember, they are trinitarian. We covered this a while back, a number of years. So you remember the will is associated with the heart and the Father, the blood with the Son, and the reason and the breath, our breathing, with the Holy Spirit and memory. And God created us so we could see that the heart pumps the blood and takes the oxygen from our breath through the body. So we are, in that sense, we reflect the Trinity. And our dignity, therefore, rests on realizing this truth and desiring it to be fulfilled.
So in relation to the divine will, then, our desire is for the gift to live in the kingdom. So desire, therefore, is needed. It's an engine, but it is orientating us towards a specific end. So St. Augustine, one of the great writers on this, his famous quote that I'm sure you've all heard before from the Confessions: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and my heart is restless until it finds rest in you, O Lord." So you have made us for yourself, O Lord. So that, in other words, means there is a God-shaped hole within us that can never be satisfied except by God.
So far, this is basic 101 *catechesis*, but it's important because we can, if we're not careful, see desire as also being a destructive thing, something which, if we're not careful, leads us in the wrong direction. That's why it's worth considering this in detail. So for St. Augustine, desire, far from being something that leads us astray, is actually the crucial thing in our journey. So Augustine, therefore, says the crucial thing is, where is our desire orientated? And if you look through, especially Volume One, you see that Jesus is pruning us and teaching us how to orientate our desires. I did a quick word search on the word "desire," and there were so many entries, even in Volume One. It's almost every other page because what Jesus is building upon is the truth that our desire is for God. So what he's teaching us is that desire, the greatest way, the fullest way to be realized, is through the gift to live in the divine will.
So St. Augustine, therefore, goes on to say that desire can be split into two kinds of things. One is when we enjoy something that is our proper end. What does that mean? The only thing that can be enjoyed as its proper end is God himself. So hang in there. This is important. You'll see that it begins to make sense. These basic truths will really help you in understanding sometimes why we act in the way in which we act. So for Augustine, the desire can be something which is the end in itself. So for us, that's God. Or the wrong desire is where you enjoy a thing which should be a means, but we enjoy it as an end. So it could be anything: food, entertainment, any single thing, any of the deadly sins, where we rest in the enjoyment of a thing that is only meant to help us to the end.
So Jesus is teaching us, especially in Volume One, how to orientate our desires to the true end. And if we combine this with St. Augustine's teaching on this, what we can say is that in the Confessions, St. Augustine was—these are my words, not his—he was almost seeking to imitate God. What do I mean by that? If we consider God is truly free and truly enjoys himself, St. Augustine was trying to find in human pleasure a freedom. So can you see how, without knowing it, when we pursue a pleasure, we are thinking that that pleasure is going to set us free? We will see this in a—we'll go through a few in detail in a minute. So the tragedy of when desire is orientated to the wrong thing is that it aims at freedom. But what happens? The person only ends up being a little god with apparent freedom, but ends in slavery.
So this is a psych—a little course in psychology to understand desire, how we must use it. We should not be scared of it. It's given to us for a reason. And Jesus constantly says, "Desire, desire, desire this, wish this, long for this, follow this." But that the desire must be orientated towards the end, and not to be led astray by those things which we think will set us free, but in fact only expose us to slavery.
A few Bible quotes that are useful in this. In Psalm 37, verse 4: It's a beautiful psalm, by the way. It's, I think, Tuesday office of readings, week two. It's a whole psalm on desiring God, placing all your trust in him. If you don't know the psalm, I strongly recommend it to you. It's one of those where each couplet is a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." So, delight yourself in the Lord. In other words, if we truly want to realize the deepest desire of our heart, we've got to find our delight in the Lord. The Lord must be that delight. And therefore, of course, his will. So that through delighting in the Lord, we delight in his will. And therefore, by doing that, he gives us the desires of our heart. But think a bit more deeply about that: "He will give you the desires of your heart." Well, what are the desires of our heart? God himself. That's the final desire, to live, to share the divine life.
Psalm 27:4: "One thing I have asked of the Lord," in other words, the one thing I desire, this was, by the way, also very popular with Augustine, "that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." So one thing we should be asking for, desiring, is that we dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And is it too much to suppose that the house of the Lord is the kingdom of the divine will?
So throughout scripture, you can come up with many verses that are showing us desire and seeking God is what will set us free. Whereas, for example, St. John, which we had in the Easter office of readings, first letter of St. John, chapter 2, verse 16: "For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father but is of the world." So John gave, and this was picked up by all the great Fathers, gave us these three great desires we have to be careful of: the flesh, the eyes, and pride of life. And St. Paul talks often about the desires of the flesh.
Now, what we have to understand in this, though, is very, very important. Scripture is clearly contrasting two things: the desire for God, to live in his house all the days of our life, and the desires of the flesh. But the danger is people then think the answer to that is to kill desire. There are almost two ways of approaching this which are both wrong. One, we're now talking about the wrong desire: desire for the flesh, the world, pride of life. One is to indulge, and we give that word *hedonism*, self-pleasure. Or the other one, the opposite one, is to suppress it. Is to say, well, these desires lead me off this way, therefore, I'm just going to try and kill them off, bury them. That's very easy to fall into, to think, "Right, this desire is leading me down this way, therefore this desire is bad, therefore I'm going to put it away and bury it deep." That never works either.
What is the solution? The solution is we channel the desire, which is good, into the right things. So, one thing that is very helpful is to ask ourselves—sorry, let me backtrack before I do this. The other thing to go with St. Augustine is a quote that we've mentioned before from St. Thomas Aquinas. It's a principle of theology that we can only act in pursuit of our happiness. So everything we do, built into us, is actually a searching for happiness. So St. Thomas is quite strict on that, that when we choose the wrong thing, when we choose evil, when we sin, it is because the heart was actually looking for something good. It's actually pursuing something, a desire it's searching for. What has happened, though, is it's chosen the wrong thing.
This is so important because if we understand this in our journey in the divine will, we will understand too, a bit deeper, how to deal with desires that unsettle us, tempt us, make us feel uncomfortable. The answer is not simply to try and by sheer force get rid of them, but is to actually first ask ourselves, "When I did this or that, what was the good I was actually looking for?" This can be a very freeing way. This is pointed out, by the way, by Restore the Glory podcast. They point out that it can be very liberating in tackling our weaknesses by first asking, "What was the good I was looking for?"
Now, to make this concrete, I'll give you a couple of examples. One I mentioned before, a book called *How to Stop Smoking* by Alan Carr. So, if any of you out there are smokers, which, by the way, I don't blame you at all if you are. I think this whole thing against smoking is so over the top as to tempt me to smoke. I've never smoked, but I'm tempted just because it's so crazy. But Alan Carr's book was very interesting because what he said was, "It's not difficult to give up smoking." Now, when you first read that, you think that's crazy. You know, you've got all the addiction, people reach for the cigarette, chain smokers. He's actually saying that's not the difficult part. That can actually go quite quickly. He says the difficult part is asking *why* we smoke. What need, when we smoke, is being met?
So I can give you a classic example from my family. My brother Greg, he started smoking about 14. Most people did at school. That was the thing you did is you smoked. And then as he got older, into his 40s, he realized he had to stop because of his asthma and breathing. So someone recommended this book, and he read it, and he sat down and he said, "Yeah, I remember him telling me, the breakthrough came when he said, 'Yeah, I noticed that what would happen is I'd have had my supper, and then there would kind of be this pause, and I'd kind of be thinking, he's subconsciously thinking through, 'Oh, there's a bit of a gap here, a bit of a blank. How am I going to fill it? How am I going to stop worrying about what to do?' So I'll smoke. That takes up time.'" Once you then tackle filling that time in a way that produces leisure and is good, the need for smoking stops, and you can then give it up. So that's one example where by sitting down and looking at why we do something, what are we actually trying to get out of it, what are we desiring, helps us to conquer the fault by then reorientating it to the proper good.
Let me give you another example, and each of you can do this. Pick a thing, perhaps one of the easiest could be, say, for example, one I can fall into: food. We know the modern phrase, "comfort eating," okay? But it's very addictive. The desire can be great. But what we need to do is first sit down and think, "What am I trying to accomplish here? Why am I reaching for the Snickers bar, or in my case, the Battenburg cake?" By the way, if you don't know a Battenburg cake, if you're from America, the Battenburg cake is like a sponge in four sections running through, two pink and two yellow with jam in between and marzipan around the outside. It's amazing. It's amazing. So, if I can resist one slice, that's good. But I can't resist a second or a third. But you ask, why do we reach for that? It could be anything. Why do children then reach for the gaming thing? Why do they find it so addictive to play computer games? We could all write down, when we actually think about it, what that provides. For example, it provides comfort. It provides a sense of security and well-being. It stops us thinking of our problems and our worries. We can fill a hole in our day without having to think too much about it. We can put our brain to sleep. And people have admitted to me, this is one of the reasons they do certain things, is that they can simply stop having to think about anything.
Now, when you then write those down and think, "Right, why am I doing these things?" and you start to say, "Right, what is the good desire here? What has God actually placed in my heart?" Because he's placed in our heart a desire for peace, a desire for relationship, a desire for joy. So that if I can then find in him those things, I can then orientate myself, and the things or the people that he's saying in Volume One we have to be detached from, we will find it much easier.
Now, why am I spending time on this? Because all of us, probably in our journey into the divine will, have times when the human will comes back into operation. It starts to get a little bit of a hold. It starts to operate again. And it's an experience. Everybody that's been through that. So I'm sure everybody in this group knows what I'm talking about. And in fact, those that don't kind of know this teaching will find it much more difficult to realize what's happening because they're so used to the human will, they don't notice anything different. So when our human will kicks back in, this is a chance then to think, "Why? What is it that is deceiving the human will into what it thinks it wants?"
Look at Adam and Eve. Look at the temptation there. The fruit's attractive. The devil comes, wishes is a lie, says to them, "God only said that because if you eat the fruit, you will become like gods." Now, if they'd stopped at that point and thought about it, they would have seen that behind that temptation [clears throat] was actually a good desire because we are made for God. We are made for him. We are made, as St. as Jesus himself quotes in scripture, to be gods. Can you see then how this analysis and looking at our desire can help us then use the pressure, use the engine, but this time in the right direction because we now see that we're being deceived? The desire is good, but it has to be orientated to the right thing. Otherwise, as I've said, we either allow the desire to be simply um indulged in, which in the end only leads to more problems, or we get worried and we bury it away, which in that case, the engine that's meant to power us becomes less.
So every disordered desire is a holy desire. There's something in it that's telling us of a need, or in the language of um Jake Kim on our on our priest retreat, an unhealed wound, a pattern of sin. That should help us then to have some confidence and understanding of why temptation's important because it allows us to really cure the root rather than always seeking to simply deal with what's on the surface. That's why many people coming to confession keep coming with the same sins. And this, I had a great Jesuit who I love dearly, Father John Edwards. But the one thing I always used to—although I knew why he was saying it—he was saying to people, "Don't worry if you're coming with the same sins. It's better to come with the same sins than new ones." So, but we're not made to commit the same sins over and over again. That's not Jesus didn't come, in the words of John Paul II, to give us coping mechanisms, to simply get us by. No, but to cure an ongoing pattern of sin means to go deeper. It means we have to start unpacking what we're looking for. What is it that's not being met? What is it that perhaps happened in our life that caused us to choose that direction?
So in things like gluttony, lust, all these things, we're looking actually for connection. That's why this talk is actually relevant to the Trinity. We're looking for connection. We're looking to escape pain. We're looking for what we're made for. We're looking for affirmation. It's just we're using a thing as the end rather than God.
So, I've talked and covered quite a bit of stuff. So, you may have some questions before we continue, and it gives me a little break. So, as you know, um, just unmute yourself and, uh, if you've got a question on that, especially if you know, if you want, if you've—it's important you just understand the simple points being made tonight because it's made to help you conquer the human will, but not simply by trying to bury the problem because that's not the answer. Nor is it the answer just to say, "Well, we'll indulge everything," but it's integrating everything so we become a whole human being. Our desires, our body, our spiritual, our health, our intellectual, our emotional are meant to be one whole human person.
I have a question, Father.
>> Is that Laurian?
>> Yeah.
>> Yes. [snorts] Um, so in regards to the divine will and going to the source of the problem rather than going to where the problem we think may lie for the healing in that spot, because the divine will tells us that we can go back to the beginning from in God's mind we were whole. So if we go into that wholeness and what he wanted for us ideally, that should really be where we go. But could you maybe give some practical tips or one on how maybe in the moment we can actually do that?
>> So there's, there's two kind of questions there. One is the one that's direct, and one is an important thing that you mention, which is, yes, following the divine will, doing our acts will in the end produce the integrity we're looking at. This talk is to help people through the bumps in that journey so that it's what I would call remedial video work, so that as I've experienced in the past, we don't get upset then when we fail, when we seem to be going in and out, and we—what we don't want to do is get annoyed, despondent, depressed about that because it's a natural progression. But what can help that, that can smooth out the bumps, is just to realize, "Oh, actually, there's a good underneath this. I've got to then reorientate." So the second question, which is, "How then in the divine world, if I'm—correct me if I'm wrong—how then in the divine world do we seek that wholeness?" Jesus gives the answer in, I think it's the 25th of December, number 1925, when he tells us the way to that healing is by, in everything we do, asking for the divine will on loan. So he clears—Louisa, because he's answering Louisa's question, which is, Louisa is saying, "If it's a gift and if we can't earn it or deserve it, how do we get over the problem then of getting it?" And Jesus is saying, "Well, all you need to do, Louisa, is you need to create a desire in your heart, which he calls a void, which is actually, if you think about it, an unmet desire." So when they use the term "void," "filling the void," the void is something that needs to be filled. It's a desire we have. So Jesus says to Louisa, "Just keep practicing whatever you're doing, listening to this talk, writing, eating, driving the car, working, praying. Say, 'Jesus, please give me this gift on loan.'" So that it will create the space within our hearts. Of course, to remember is the little way of St. Thérèse, which is to remember that the smaller we make ourselves, and the more vulnerable we become, then God's strength will work. So if we have a desire that we find for things that are wrong, the answer again is simply to make ourselves small and show God, "Look, God, without you, this is where I'm going to end up. Without you, I'm going to fall. I'm so weak that only you can get me through this." That's why I believe that amongst a number of saints, St. Thérèse is so important in preparing us for this teaching because, and remember Pope St. Pius X called her the most important saint of the 20th century. Why? Because she taught us that holiness is not about conquering weakness. Holiness is about staying small and keeping small so that Jesus then lifts us up. So in divine will terminology, what that means is, in everything we're doing, as we actually—it came up, I think it came up today in the 31st day, you know, in everything we're doing, we say to Mary, "Look, I'm giving you my human will because I'm so weak that if I'm left to myself, it's going to be used again. So you take it and guard it. And if you see I'm going to use it, stop me." Every time those things happen, healing takes place because the desire is then orientated to the final good. That's why if you actually follow the volumes, Jesus, everything I'm telling you tonight, he covers in his own particular way. What I thought would be good today is to just give us some reassurance that firstly, desire is a good thing, that it really helps when we simply look at why. In other words, there's a good we're searching for when we make wrong decisions. And this can help you also with helping other people because other people can get very down about their failures. They can really feel they're knocking their head against the wall. There's no way out of this. They feel shame, fear. Well, what we'd say to them is, "Look, God's actually planted something good in that. This is the good he's planted. You're searching for the right things: connection. You're searching for assurance, peace, love, intimacy, affirmation. Orientate those now things to God rather than what you are choosing to replace him." It's why the AA is such a successful program because that's what it's doing to people. It's not trying to change things by any neat technique or this or medication or help. It's getting the people to realize the way out of this is to realize we're weak, that we can't do it ourselves. And this also may be because I know a number of people in the divine will following this. You know, it can be a little bit down if you just say, "Oh golly, my human will started. I went astray. I started doing this." Is to realize, "Okay, but don't worry. Sit down, think about it, pray about it. What does the Holy Spirit want you to learn about this? And what does the Holy Spirit then want to show you that the divine will is the way through it?" You see, um, let me try and think what I want to say. What I'm also trying to say is, you can't—you will not make this journey if the journey is simply about ticking boxes. You will not make the journey through to the receiving the gift if one makes the mistake of thinking it's about ticking boxes, if I do these acts, if I read this hours of the Passion, because you could go through those things but without really a desire. This is why the Pharisees, as I keep telling my parish during Lent, why when we hear so much about the Pharisees, we have to pay careful attention because each time we're being asked to reflect, "Is there something about the Pharisee in me?" You remember Jesus's comment: "They honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me." So what Jesus wants in desire is the heart orientated to him. That's why if we do it, he can do the rest. But if the desire in the heart is not in it, and it becomes an exercise, it will never work. That's why it comes down to a conversion of the heart. It means changing our heart and our desire. And when that happens, everything else will follow because Jesus will do the rest. He's promised us that. Desire it, and I will do the rest, little by little. Good question, Tom. Yeah. Is Jane, have you got a question?
>> Yeah. So, for an example of what you're saying there, would it be like, um, okay, I've got the whole Bible. I still need to read. I've got all 39 or 36 volumes of Luisa. I've got this book. I've got this book. And I'm working full-time. And like, you look at all and you think, I'm overwhelmed already. But I've still got the desire, really got the desire to live in the divine will. But then I feel like I'm like a little sparrow and I can only manage little bits.
>> Right? So let's take that. That's very important. You've got the desire to live in the divine will. But what has kicked in there is a bit of self-reliance. "I've got to sort out and do this amount of reading, or cover this and that and the other." And do you see how you drift back to this thing that's so deep within us, that if I just manage to tick all these things, read this book, do that act, then the end result will come? We easily fall into that because the modern world has kind of—well, by modern, I'm talking 600 years of preparing for this—has got us to thinking that way. Whereas godly self-reliance on God in that situation is, "Lord, I desire the divine will. I don't quite know how to use my time. I'm just going to trust you're going to show me what you need when I need it." And when you take that, you will find that an odd verse or a little few lines can fill the rest. You don't have to have read 36 volumes to live in the divine world. You could read one sentence, and the gift could come. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying therefore that because knowledge is important. So if we can read, that's great. But what I'm saying is the reading comes from the desire and from allowing God then to organize it, rather than thinking everything is still up to me. I have to do this. I have to read that. Otherwise, as you said, there's so much out there. Where do you go first? So little, but read reflectively and contemplatively. In fact, a Cusian said, "If you actually understood any couple of lines of scripture, you'd understand the whole Bible." Now, that sounds strange, but what he means is that actually God can lead you from something small. And remember, it's a gift. He can infuse knowledge into us. Now, again, you have to balance that. That doesn't mean to say, "Right, I don't need to do anything now. God, you can do." No, that's presumption. But what you're saying is exactly kind of what this talk addressed to is to use the desire, but to see it orientated to the good rather than coming back to being self-reliant, in which case we then go back to being anxious, worried, and so on.
>> Thank you.
>> Good. Good questions. Good questions. Okay, if there's no more questions, I'll say a few more things. Remember, questions are really important. If you're worried, or you know, you can always send me a question on the chat, just addressed to me, but no question, you should never think any questions too simple. Never think, "Oh, well, people will think I know nothing about the divine will if I ask that question." Chances are, every question that's asked, someone else has it in their mind because we all, um, we're all dealing with these same issues. We're all on the journey. We all, Jane, fall into that way of thinking. We all do. I've known exactly the same thing. You know, "Where do I start? What do I do? I've got 15 minutes." And you, you've just got to remember, that's self-reliance. That's going back to it's up to me. Where St. Thérèse would say, "Keep small. Lord, I don't know what to do. You've got to guide me in this time." And once you've done that, and whatever comes to your mind, be at peace. Be at peace with what you've chosen.
Okay, we've got some questions coming in. "When Jesus tells Louisa that all creatures must disappear from her sight and she must obey them as if it were Jesus who was asking or commanding her." Yeah. What, in other words, what Jesus is not saying, he is not saying that you do not pay any attention to the people around you. He's talking about creatures must disappear in the wrong desire we have for them. So the answer to that is given—I can't remember which day, but one of you, I know, will find it—the day in the retreat of the Kingdom of Mary about when she, uh, when she's told she's going to have a husband, St. Joseph, and Mary says, "I never loved anybody except in the divine mode." What she's saying there is that every relation she had to creatures, and remember, she loves all of us, she does in the divine mode. What that means is it's love of God, love of creature put in the right perspective. So we—detachment does not mean suppressing, cutting off. It means everything becomes orientated towards holy desire. Right? And what Sam Gadori says in that quote you see there is what Francis de Sales says in his book, um, *Introduction to the Devout Life*. The great thing about the divine will is it doesn't matter what your state of life is. You could be a contemplative nun that has eight hours to pray. You could be a busy care worker in a home. It doesn't matter because what's important is the will of God, doing our acts in his will. So if one person's God's will is for them to spend hours in contemplation, that's his will. If one person's will of God is for them to keep looking after housebound, washing people, changing their linen, that's the will of God. There is, and and Jose Maria Escrivá says this in his, in some of his comments on labor, we shouldn't make distinction between different types of job or different ways. Now, the Church does give a hierarchy in order to keep the balance so that we understand there is a hierarchy in our own lives. So that even if you've only got five minutes of contemplation, that's the crucial thing.
Linda, you, you've got to just unmute yourself. No. Okay. Uh, my other questions, this is, how do we practice acting as sons versus slaves in the divine will? It's very easy. Again, it's the answer: do everything as Jesus wants to do it, and it's necessary for him to do it in us. That's when we are sons and not slaves. Even though it may appear that we're acting more as slaves, but we're not. That is fulfilling our deepest desire because our deepest desire was planted for that moment, that act, by Jesus. That's when we talked about, if you remember, claiming the perfect version of our lives. That means concretely, when we've made our prevenient act, what we're doing is what God has given us to do with Jesus. Do you see the difference? It's not that we have to do a series of prayers in order to kind of get that to happen. What the prayer does is it brings back to us the reality that God has given us these acts. They're there. They're there carried out perfectly. So by claiming them, by allowing, as Jesus says to Louisa, "For the rest of your life, do everything as I as me doing it in you and as necessary to me." Then we're truly sons. We're no longer slaves. We're friends of Christ because we're sharing everything with him. So that's where the unity prayer might be useful to you in that.
Um, Joan,
>> Yes, Father Dominic, as you're talking, I'm just calling to mind an incident in at home here. Um, yesterday, um, my husband is quite poorly, and I am his carer, and one of the little jobs that I do from time to time is put cream on his feet. And, um, yesterday, as I was doing it, you know, I could easily think, "Oh, not done it for ages, it's a chore." But I suddenly thought, "In the divine will, I'm doing this [snorts] for Jesus." And so I got the cream and I, I didn't share it with my husband, but I did it in the divine will. And I imagined, um, when Mary Magdalene was anointing Jesus's feet. And so as I was putting the cream on, I was calling that time to mind, and I was saying, "Jesus, this is for you. I'm doing this for you." Although it's my husband's feet. And it made such a difference [snorts] to how I went about doing it, and I felt it was such a sacred moment. Um, so I, I just can concur with what you're saying now. I understand that, uh, we have to try and be more like that in all our daily actions. Let the self die, and we're doing it for Jesus.
>> Okay, Father. What prompted you then again is desire. And remember, it wasn't your husband's feet you were anointing with cream. It was Jesus's feet. "When you do it to the least one of these, you do it to me." But that's beautiful, Joan. That's exactly the simplicity. But notice how you were prompted. That was a grace given to you. That's how it works on our journey. So we don't get depressed or fed up or despondent when we fail to always do our divine acts. We just then start to become small and say to Jesus, "You're going to prompt me. You want me to do my divine acts? You prompt me to do them because I forget and I think of other things and my desires go about other things. But yeah, when you do it in the divine world because he's providing the power, the strength, the love, it then doesn't seem like a chore anymore. And that's exactly what Mary says to us in the retreat, that although they had so many hardships, they didn't feel them as such because at the same time was the joy of the divine world. That's how we also learn to want suffering because we learn to understand that wanting suffering is not just a barbaric kind of strange way of doing things, but it's actually the deepest way of attaining joy because they, because then they, they become all part of the divine will.
>> Good, very useful questions, um, tonight. Uh, so I'm going to give a two-minute summary just so we just remember where we are. Um, so one Verity Lusk. Yeah, Verity, have you got a question?
>> Yeah, just can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. Um, so I was just alarmed. I, I get lots of different ways into the divine will. I get some sips that are sent daily through an email, and I get other things, um, because of my schedule. Um, and one of the things was saying, if you, Jesus was explaining to Louisa, I don't know what volume it was, if you don't do these acts continuously, and obviously at the start, there's no way I can go from naught to 100, I just can't do that. Um, and so I'm doing bits and bobs, and some days hardly nothing, and other days a bit better. And then it says Jesus said, like, those that don't do it continuously, it's like they've got a room with some objects in odd places, and the room is not vacated by anyone, is the room is vacant, and it's futile, and it doesn't bear any fruit. And I was so disheartened because it was like, "Well, you're telling us to be encouraged and not to be worried, but Jesus is really exacting and he's really explicit in saying if you're not getting everything, then you're not getting anything." And that's really hard. I just wanted you to be able to respond to that.
>> Yeah. That's because, like everything, like scripture, one of the rules St. Augustine gives us is you have to read every passage commented by other passages. So you always have to see what Jesus is saying as a whole and in terms also of where Louisa is. So likewise, that previous one I said to you, 25th of December, 1925, Jesus is clearly saying there, it's going to be a journey. But what happened there, the danger in your reaction was the despondency, and the despondency came about because you were worried that you weren't going to fulfill what Jesus was asking of Louisa.
>> Yeah.
>> But the answer to that is, "Lord, I'm very small. My room is very empty. I wish it was full. Over to you." Because remember, Jesus also says that desire makes up for those acts we don't accomplish.
>> Okay.
>> So, like everything, you've—this is why theologians will be necessary in this journey because otherwise, we can read something and think, "Right, Jesus is saying this, therefore if I'm not doing that, it's all crazy." You have to read it as a whole. As we go along and as we grow in that, then that obviously does become true because we need—he keeps saying, "Be attentive." But first of all, he's talking to Louisa, who's had years of experience this, years of preparation. She's gone through mystical marriage, marriage at the cross. Whereas what Jesus—this gift is for everyone. So next time that happens, you say, "No, if Jesus is permitting me to experience this feeling about, oh, my kind of room's empty, I haven't filled it, then what is he, what desire is he wanting for me? He's wanting the desire to have the room full. So look, Jesus, I wish my room was full. So I desire that you make up for what I haven't done."
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Good. Very important question. Okay. Any final questions? I'll just check the chat. I think we've covered most things there. Good. Okay.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So, Lord, we thank you for planting in our hearts the desire for you. We thank you too for planting in our hearts the desire for the gift. We pray, Lord, always set our desires on you alone. Let us orientate our use of creatures, our relationships. Let us always use them when you have given to us as means to the end. And grant us not to be discouraged or despondent on our journey when we find we slip up, when we don't achieve what we should have done, but to always, Lord, keep us small, keep us as children, completely dependent on you. So never let our branches separate from the vine, so that your grace always flows from us. And grant us the grace to be peaceful even about our journey to holiness, to hand everything over to you. And that we accept now our particular part, place in heaven that you have for us, our particular way of life, the particular acts and the mission you give to each and every one of us. And grant us, and grant to all those souls that struggle with wrong or with desires that are given to wrong things, for them to see that beneath it all is a desire for you.
May the Lord grant you a quiet night and a peaceful end. And may his blessing come upon you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.