Transcription
You're listening to Radio Maria, a Christian voice [music] in your home. We now bring you Learning to Live in God's divine will with Father Joseph [music] Iannuzzi.
Hello in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. >> [gasps] >> 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. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Welcome to this program entitled Learning to Live in God's divine will on this 28th day in the month of March in the year of our Lord 2026. What has been going on in the world and I'm speaking without the proper audio equipment because I'm away from the church. The parishes the five parishes where I'm assisting in Italy and hopefully the audio holds up. But I would like to talk a little bit by way of introduction about what's happening in the world and tied into the love of God that foresees all things before they occur including what's happening today not just in the world but also in the church.
Well, as many of you are aware today on this 20th day of March the US has declared that 500 US paratroopers and Marines may do a ground invasion possibly to take over Kharg Island which is the major export terminal for oil in Iran and just connected there to the Straits of Hormuz and uh if one recalls that in Iraq in 2003 there were hundreds of thousands of troops that were sent to deploy there including those of Britain, 45,000 in all. And to think that 500 US paratroopers and Marines can take this island and keep it will make them quite vulnerable and the sensitivity in the USA of body bags piling up will certainly influence the USA thinking. Nevertheless, what has happened already has impacted all of us all of us worldwide um including the countries that are benefiting off of the oil that's available to those in the Middle East China, Russia, so forth. For example, just in the US fuel and food shortages are being affected are being caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.
Now, it's important to remember that the Strait of Hormuz was open to the USA before and Russia and Europe before uh this war was waged on Iran. And uh as a result of it being closed to us it's affecting our affordable transportation by way of car or plane and that will definitely result in food food shortages. Why do I say that? Because it will impact the transportation of fertilizer. Farming industry requires fertilizer to produce food and this will lead in turn to increase of food prices. Um so, it's really turning out to be a colossal disaster what's going on in the Middle East. No one can deny that in terms of economics. Okay?
Now the media is giving you all different angles of their version of the truth. I'd say the Western media is heavily spun because of things that have recently be brought been broadcast about negotiations taking place whereas Iran denied such thing and so do other countries and other television networks not in the west but in the east. Once again thank God I'm not a politician. I'm not a military strategist. I'm a priest and therefore I don't speak with authority in this field but simply share that which has been relayed by reliable sources and credible individuals who work for the military who have made public statements and um what all this leads to is worry fear insecurity and sometimes panic. All of these do not lead us into intimacy with the Trinity. They lead us away from it.
Now, was it a surprise that the news is replete with negativity? This has always been the case at least in my lifetime. The vast majority of the news is negative and negativity does not lead you to intimacy with the Trinity. Certainly we cannot avoid or ignore the reality around us because it affects us and we have to be in lockstep with what's going on so as to manage our daily lives and our family and our economy and us and so forth. Nonetheless, God has permitted this. He has not willed it. Okay, I want to make that clear. I've come across some Catholics because of course I work in parishes and some of them, not many, I'd say maybe 4% have maintained that all this is part of God's plan. This is part of God's will. No, it's not part of God's will.
Why is it not part of God's will? I made this distinction last week. God's ordaining will and his permitting will. His ordaining will wants something. His permitting will does not want it but tolerates it because God never imposes his ordaining will upon our free human will. God wants us all to be saved. That's his ordaining will. Scriptures attest to this. God wants no one to be lost. But he will not force us to be saved. So, God permitted the fall of the angels. He permitted the damnation of Lucifer and a third. He also permitted the fall of man and woman in the Garden of Eden with original sin. Did God will this simply because it happened? Of course not. Nor does he will what's going on in the Middle East today because it involves a lot of deception and killing.
Now, shall not kill is a commandment. The church permits and the church has authority in the field of morality killing for unjust reasons and without any minute threat. Okay? I heard somebody once say, "Oh, there's an imminent threat in Iran because they're killing people, they're beheading, etc." If that's the case, then China's an imminent threat. No, so are these other countries that are killing people, right? So, no, that's not what the church defines as an imminent threat. Okay? Um we have yet to see the imminency of this threat. There has been a lot of talk just as there had been during the Iraq invasion that there were weapons of mass destruction and we hear a similar tone here but we have yet to see the proof. And yet the war is going on.
So, how do we seek intimacy with the Holy Trinity amidst the negativity that we're being fed if we're attached to the tube or the internet which we should not be. We should certainly have a pulse on the situation in the world without ever neglecting our prayer life and that's the key I wish to focus on in this talk today because many Catholics, the vast majority of Catholics do not maintain a steady daily prayer life and as a result they give in to the sentiments that lead them away from intimacy with the Trinity that I mentioned such as fear, worry, insecurity and sometimes panic.
Now, Luisa, the Servant of God whose cause for beatification is moving steadily forward she was instructed directly by God himself on how to maintain amidst not just external distractions and turmoil such as the First World War, the Second World War, the cholera epidemic and earthquakes and natural disasters that she experienced in her lifetime this peace that God instilled in her but also the internal war she went through when she was attacked by demons which exceeded personally in her life what we're experiencing externally. Having said that, I'm going to >> [clears throat] >> share with you Luisa's approach that Jesus shared with her in volume one and then share some other passages of Jesus' instructions on how to maintain this peace. This interior intimacy with the Holy Trinity.
Um first of all, around the age of uh 16, Luisa was undergoing a tremendous interior battle with demons. At the age of 12, she began receiving these substantial interior locutions on a daily basis virtually. But it was not until a few years later in her late teen years that God allowed in this interior attack to occur in her life. That endured for about 3 years. That she endured for 3 years. That lasted 3 years. And Jesus gave Luisa the remedy. And that was Well, first of all, before I give you the remedy, he prepared her for these attacks, which he always does. He told her, "I'm going to allow the demons to harass you. But know that if you maintain your daily prayers and exercise courage and trust in me while remaining obedient to your confessors, which represents her ecclesiastical authority, you will vanquish all of them. But if you fail to do so, the demons will have the upper hand. Okay?
So, in volume one, Jesus explains to Luisa how to exorcise demons from her life. Not as, let's say, a canonically approved exorcist that is reserved only to the priests, but as a baptized individual who has the powers to cast out demons, not through a major, but through a minor exorcism. And Luisa went through a lot in these years, you know? So, compared to what we're experiencing today on the outside, it's really nothing with respect to what she experienced on the inside. So, without any further ado, let me refer you to um her childhood memoirs, where she states that she had before she was going through these attacks, a desire to become a nun. And she would eventually realize that this was not her vocation in life. But she wanted it so bad that she lost her peace. And she states that as a girl, it was an unstoppable yearning. And she since realized, meaning since Jesus revealed to her that she would be a nun in the world living in the cloister of his divine will, what tyranny this natural affection caused her. She states, um such internal reproaches from Jesus have transfixed me to the cross. And I recall them with great horror. It seemed to me that this inordinate natural affection of mine kept Jesus crucified and that Jesus in return crucified me. So, why did not enjoy enjoy true peace as the nature of inordinate human affection is to wage war on the poor human heart.
Now, this applies to us in so far as these inordinate human affections we have of worry, of fear, insecurity of what the future will bring on account of this war will wage war on the divine will that seeks to dwell in us through intimacy with the Trinity. She adds, "I believe that for one to have peace while entertaining an inordinate affection is not possible. Okay? And if it were possible, she adds, it would be because that individual is without a conscience."
In the volumes, Jesus instills in Luisa the absolute importance and necessity of maintaining at all times interior intimacy with him through peace. Okay? And this peace is forged on the anvil of unceasing prayer. Remember in volume one, he told her, "Never abandon your daily prayers." What were her daily prayers? That she did every single day of her life without skipping one day. The first and foremost, the prevenient act, the morning offering in the divine will that I will share with you today because she compiled uh various extrapolations throughout her text. And they are put together in my doctor dissertation. In the prevenient act, a chapter is devoted to how Luisa began her day. And Jesus made it Jesus stressed that the most important prayer throughout the days is the prevenient act. Because what that does is it seals you in peace. And it ought to be renewed throughout the day because distractions will come to try to drag you away from the peace and intimacy of God. And it is as follows. It's found on page 110 of the dissertation.
"O Immaculate Heart of Mary, mother and queen of the divine will, I entreat you by the infinite merits of the sacred heart of Jesus and by the graces God has granted to you since your immaculate conception, the grace of never going astray. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I am a poor and unworthy sinner and I beg of you the grace to allow our mother, Mary, and we can add and Luisa, to form in me the divine acts you purchased for me and everyone. These acts are the most precious of all, for they carry the eternal power of your fiat. And they await my yes, your will be done. Fiat voluntas tua. So, I implore you, Jesus, Mary, and Luisa, to accompany me as I now pray." And here, Luisa begins to acknowledge her nothingness and that God sustains the peace within her. "I am nothing, God is all. Come, divine will."
Now, what does she mean by this, come divine will? Divine will, is it a person? Is it a thing? Is it an abstraction? It is Is it a verb? Is it a noun? It's all the above. But she understood this as the Trinity. The one eternal act of God, which is his essence. So, when she says, "Come, divine will," she means, "Come, Father. Come, Son. Come, Spirit." And she adds, "Come, heavenly Father, to beat in my heart and act in my will. Come, Jesus, to flow in my life blood and think in my thoughts. Come, Holy Spirit, to breathe in my breath and stir in my memory to recall God's blessings. I fuse myself in the divine will and place my I love you, I adore you, and I bless you, God, in the fiats of creation. With my I love you, my soul bilocates in the creations of the heavens and the earth.
Now, this act of bilocation is found in the very beginning of Luisa's writings. When she talks about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Jesus tells her that Adam had the gift to bilocate his soul in all creatures. Okay? So, with that in mind, she knows that she can too do the same and so can we. She adds, "I love you, God, Father, Son, and Spirit, in the stars, in the sun, the moon, and the skies. Okay? I love you in the earth, in the waters, and in every living creature my Father created out of love for me so that I may requite love for love."
Then she goes into Jesus' humanity, which is the gate through which we must enter to live in the divine will. We go through Jesus, Mary, and Luisa, but remember, even though chronologically Mary preceded Jesus and he, Luisa, Jesus, has St. Paul says is the firstborn of all creatures in the order of grace and that includes the young created grace of God the divine will that is retroactive that influenced all the patriarchs prophets judges before it that is contemporaneous that influenced all those during his lifetime including maybe four five generations and proactive influencing all of us and all future generations. So she enters into Jesus most holy humanity that embraces all acts of all creatures and she states I place my I adore you Jesus in your every breath heartbeat thought word and step. I adore you in the sermons of your public life in the miracles you performed in the sacraments you instituted and in the most intimate fibers of your heart. I bless you Jesus in your every tear blow wound thorn and in each drop of blood that unleashed light for the life of every human. I bless you in all your prayers reparations offerings.
Now before I continue this act this expression I bless you people have asked me how can we bless God? You know Pope Francis came out with a document that said pastors at their own discretion can bless all people. But there were two types of blessing. One is ascending one is descending. What is the ascending blessing? Imploring God's help we need God's assistance. Sinners can ask for that even the most heinous criminals. A descending blessing is God's favor is resting upon you because you were in his grace. See the difference? Ascending blessing you don't have to be in the state of grace to receive it because it puts you there. It disposes you to put you there. It disposes you for an act of repentance so that you may confess your sins. That is an ascending blessing. Descending means you're already in the state of grace and many Catholics I won't say many I'd say it was definitely about so less than 20% were complaining about Pope Francis writing this document stating how can you impart an ascending blessing upon a sinner such as a person that's cohabitating with another outside of marriage but approaches a priest for a blessing. And here's the answer. Because that blessing imparts a positive strength to lead them to repentance. It doesn't condone their state. It disposes them to get out of it or regulate it. You see what I'm saying? So most people didn't understand this because I don't Well there were two reasons. Number one Pope Francis was not a theologian. He never obtained his degree doctoral degree in theology. He was not qualified to >> [sighs] >> uh teach with the razor edge precision as a Ratzinger, right? Therefore that document was not crystal clear in its theological articulation. It could have been expressed better but it didn't contain any heresies. It contained ambiguities. So what did people do? Instead of saying well explain this they jumped at the juggler and started attacking him, right?
I'll give you an example before I go back to this prayer of Louisa where she says I bless you God and explain how we can actually bless God because there are different types of blessing here. Take for example the fifth joyful mystery the finding of the child Jesus in the temple. Mary is worried, okay? But not to the point of losing her peace and this is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary in the kingdom of the divine will book where she says she implored the angels earnestly where is my child my life the source of my bliss. She was living an interior dark night for three days the Blessed Virgin Mary living by faith alone not knowing where her son was. Dark night by the way doesn't mean you're not journeying with faith of course you are. In fact Jesus tells Louisa faith is at its best when all the external consolations and niceties are removed from the soul and has the voyage in spiritual blindness. So Mary was going through this for three days in an intense way and she was receiving no response from the angels because God ordained it thus. And then she and Joseph after both of them searching all about for three days and three nights finally come across him in the temple. And what does he say? Oh, I had didn't you know I had to be in my father's house as if they should have known. Right? And what was Joseph and Mary's reaction? Was it like that of those people who would responded to Pope Francis document? Why did you say such a thing? You can't write such things. No. They said why did you do this to us? Didn't you know that we were searching for you and he said didn't you know that I must be in my father's house? Basically they did not hold his decision in contempt.
So what does the scripture the Gospel of Luke say? After Jesus said these words to them Mary pondered these things in her heart. She pondered them. What does that mean? She allowed the Holy Spirit who would remind her of what Jesus taught her and reveal to her all the truth John chapter 16 verse 12 of what the inner meaning of these words meant and the action of Jesus disappearing for three days meant. It didn't come to her in that moment. It progressively came to her. What does this tell us? Often times when the church teaches somethings and they're not crystal clear to us to our finite human minds on account of our ignorance or on account of the church's lack of razor edge precision articulation in theological terms we should not jump to the juggler and attack the church of which Christ is the head. Christ often times spoke in parables deliberately. Why? Why didn't he just plainly tell people how things were black and white? Because God does not cast his pearls to swine. We have to be properly disposed to understand them and how do we get properly disposed? How are we properly disposed? By being docile to the Holy Spirit. That was Mary's attitude. If Mary jumped to conclusions said this doesn't make any sense son. You should have told us. Look what you did to us. She would never understood what happened. But she eventually did. Jesus three days in the temple were preparing her and Joseph even though Joseph would not experience this later on but he would you know when he would be on his deathbed. For three Jesus absence in the tomb. Now I say Joseph experienced on his deathbed these moments because Jesus was not always beside Joseph's bed. You read some of the writings of church to prove revelations on Joseph find this as well. He also had to experience these moments of the absence of Christ like Louisa did and she would complain to our Lord initially but eventually she realized that this was part of her being disposed by the grace of the Holy Spirit to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of understanding in the mysteries of Christ's actions and words.
So when we say I bless you Jesus as Louisa did in this morning offering in your every tear blow wound thorn I bless you in all your prayers reparations she's not giving to God anything that God does not already have. God is perfect and complete in and of himself. But she's adding to the accidental glory not essential glory of all creation and also of God. That's right. St. Ignatius of Loyola the founder of the Society of Jesus took as his moniker ad maiorem Dei gloriam which in Latin which in English means to the greater glory of God. What does that exactly mean? God can receive greater glory? Of course he can. Through accidental increasing of all creation. What does Jesus say about one repentant sinner that returns? All of heaven rejoices the angels and saints over one repentant sinner that has come back than over all the righteous in heaven. And even on Earth. So that increases not only the glory of heaven, but indirectly the glory of God, but accidental glory, not essential glory. So when we bless God, we're increasing the accidental glory. And how do we bless him? >> [gasps] >> By living in his will, by establishing an ever-increasing intimacy with the Trinity. Never losing our peace.
So she states, "I bless you in all your prayers, Jesus, because she's making, as we will find toward the end of this prevenient act, all these prayers her own, redoubling, multiplying the glory of all creation and therefore indirectly the accidental glory of God. I bless you in all your prayers, reparations, offerings, and in each of the interior acts and pains you suffered up to your last breath on the cross. I enclose your life and all your acts, Jesus, with my I love you, I adore you, and I bless you.
I now went to into the acts of my mother Mary and we can add in also of Luisa because this triple plane is required for us to receive the gift of living in God the divine will. This triple plane consists of all the divine acts that Jesus purchased for all mankind and that Mary deposited within her will as did Luisa. The two virgins that came to the aid of the human race. And that we must deposit within our will. Okay? So she adds, "I place my I thank you in Mary's every thought, word, action, and we can add Luisa's. I thank you in in the embraced joys and sorrows of Jesus fiat of redemption, of the Holy Spirit's sanctification. Fused in your acts, I make my I thank you and I bless you flow in the relations of every creature to fill their acts with light and life. To fill the acts of Adam and Eve. Again, we're increasing the accidental glory of these pious blessed souls enjoying the beatific vision of the patriarchs and prophets, of the souls of the past, present, future, of the holy souls in purgatory, of the holy angels and saints. All right. I now make these acts my own and I offer them to you, my tender and loving father. May they increase the glory of your children and may they glorify, satisfy, and honor you on their behalf. Let us now begin our day with our divine acts fused together.
Now this is important when Luisa says, "I make these acts my own." What does exactly does that mean? She's when she starts her prevenient act in the passive mode. She's inviting Jesus and Mary's divine acts to become one with her own. Once she does that, she becomes their possessor. And now what she does, God does. Why do I say that? What Whenever we act, God first and foremost looks at our intention, then he looks at the result. So suppose Luisa intended to do something with all the effort she could muster up. Let's say she garnered up the strength to seek counsel from her spiritual confessor or director of what is the right thing to do in this particular situation. She reflected upon it, she pondered it in her heart. She prayed over it and then she acted, but in the end she did the wrong thing. God was no less pleased with the result of her having missed the mark than if she nailed it because her intention was perfect, upright. So you see what I say when affirming what she did, God did, is predicated upon intentionality. Most people don't give that enough attention. We must give more attention to our intention because that is where the merit lies. But as St. Faustina states in her diary of divine mercy entry 800, before we do something, we must seek advice, that is seek what the church teaches in this regard, pray, reflect, and only then ought we to act. We cannot act hastily. Okay? And if we have to on the spur where we don't have time to deliberate, that's where God replaces our unintended or what's called involuntary um I'm sorry, not involuntary, invincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance means you are not responsible for that because you have no time to prepare. This is where the prevenient act comes in. It helps fill in these gaps where we don't form the intention due to no fault of our own, but because of lack of time. Like you're driving for example, you're about to get into an accident. Should I turn left, right? You make the wrong decision, you crash. I should have turned right in hindsight, but I'm not responsible because my intention was to avoid the crash. So even though the person may have been injured by my action, God is not offended.
Now, Luisa says, "I make these acts my own." That's what she means. She knows now that what she does is blessed by God because she has fused herself with the divine acts of Jesus and Mary and has formed the upright intention for her to do all her acts throughout the day accordingly. And she concludes with, "Let us begin our day with our divine acts fused together, Jesus and Mary." And of course when we fuse our acts with Jesus, it's the same act of the Father and the Spirit because they're one will, one action. Thank you, most holy Trinity, for enabling me to enter into union with you by means of prayer. May your kingdom come and your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Fiat.
Okay? Now tomorrow or tonight actually during the vigil mass, we will be celebrating Palm Sunday, which is the beginning of the last act of the divine tragedy that would spiritually revolutionize mankind. Thanks be to the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, who gave us the fiat of redemption as the first installment of the fiat of sanctification. John's gospel reveals that the Spirit had not yet come because Jesus had not yet been glorified on Palm Sunday. That is after he had died and risen again. St. John chapter 7. Of this impending death, Jesus spoke to his disciples when affirming that the grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die in order to produce fruit. And while it is clear that Jesus regarded the cross as essential to living in the divine will, in fact Luisa received a spiritual marriage of the cross. Um Jesus regarded the cross as a prelude to our glory because it was the prelude to his glory for our glory. This is found in John chapter 12. And the disciples recall Jesus' words after he had risen from the dead in John 12 because Jesus glorif- his glorified spirit was acting in them, opening their minds and hearts to the things he revealed that I have shared with you where he said, "I have much things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now, but when the Spirit of truth comes, he will not only remind you of things I taught you, but lead you to all the truth." And that is why the third person of the Trinity is the sanctifier, the fiat of sanctification because he reveals to us all the truth about the gift of the divine will that has been hidden for 6,000 years.
So Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus' martyrial love from all of us. And he exemplified it on the nuptial bed of the cross. He consummated it in the resurrection, just like in marriage. At the foot of the altar, it's ratified, but on the matrimonial bed it is consummated. It's a timeless act in Jesus' resurrection that commensurately influences all of us. And it invites us to partake of that same glory that he enjoys at the Father's right hand and that the angels and saints enjoy in heaven. They possess the gift of living in the divine will in heaven, but unlike us on earth, cannot increase their own merit or multiply their divine acts throughout mankind increasing the accidental glory of creation. Angels and saints cannot do that. That's why they look to us because we can increase their glory in the glory of all other creatures and indirectly that of God.
So, as so to more fully appreciate this event of Palm Sunday, let me speak a little bit about his bold entry into the city of Jerusalem and the people. There were about 2 million gathered. Keep that in mind. About 2 million people gathered in Palm Sunday. And upon seeing him, they throw their garments in front of him. Others put them on the donkey, the colt upon which no human had ever ridden. And yet others cut down bows of trees, carry palms, ferns, and proceed him shouting, "Hosanna to God in the highest. Praise to the son of David. Hail the Lord." And Jesus finishes his journey amid acclamation and shouting and seeing the ephemeral character of popularity leaves the city with his disciples, goes to the opposite hill, looks down upon it and weeps.
Now, the disciples, somewhat impervious to the Lord's sorrow and aloof to the mystery of his impending death, remark of the temple across from the hill they just crossed, "Look at those stones. Look at that building." Admiring the gold reflections off the sun. And the Lord with tears streaming down his eyes utters, "Oh, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you myself as a hen gathers her siblings under her wings." Jesus was weeping just as he wept last Sunday over the death of Lazarus. Now, over the people of Jerusalem that would not receive him as their savior, as the Messiah who came to gave give them the first installment of the gift of living in the divine will by the institution of the sacraments. And they would reject the same glory he received from the Holy Spirit that he alluded to earlier.
So, here we come to a sobering truth in the lives of all of us in this time of conflict, of civil unrest. There are periods of worry, sometimes fear and security, sometimes panic, sometimes sorrow. When we find ourselves at a crisis in life, it is not presumptuous to assert it is our blessed Lord weeping in us because he tells Luisa in the eighth hour, fact, it's in the reflection of the eighth hour eighth hour, that we should whenever we experience these moments of challenge, cross, trials, acknowledge that it is the Lord in us wanting to rest in us in those moments. Indeed, Jesus may weep in us at times over the insensitivity of others, even over leaders of nations, over the hardness of the hearts of individuals in or outside of the church due to past injuries sustained at the hands of others or by life's misfortunes. And after he wept, he relived at the Last Supper his sorrow, which he considered an invaluable means for the glory that we would receive if we keep our faith to the end. Let us recall that at the Last Supper, which I visited actually, not the Last Supper itself, but the painting of DaVinci just a few months ago at the beginning of this year in Milan, he stated that he will not feast with his disciples again until he does so in his Father's kingdom.
So, there's optimism even in the face of sorrow. And as we join together for this Eucharistic celebration starting Holy Week, we begin to relive in a more intense way the mystery the disciples intimated. We become heirs to the glory of the kingdom Christ promises, a mystery that is as profound as it is simple. There is no glory without the cross. There is no resurrection without a Good Friday. And this resurrection, which coincides with the week preceding Luisa's birthday, precedes the outpouring of mercy on the Feast of Divine Mercy, which occurred on Luisa's birthday. >> [clears throat] >> So, let us offer up our daily crosses with Christ that we too may inherit the glory he has prepared for us since the foundation of the world. And may God bless you and keep you throughout this Holy Week in his grace so that when Good Friday comes, you may participating in the Stations of the Cross, begin the novena for the Feast of Divine Mercy to culminate with the rebirth in [snorts] the divine will through the outpouring of the Pentecost in your soul that wipes away all sin and punishment. And this novena is to serve to prepare you for stability in the virtues and in the gift of living in the divine will so that from that day forth, you may remain faithful to God, his gifts, and his graces. And may God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. >> [music] >> You're listening to Radio Maria, the Christian voice in your home. You've been listening to Learning to Live in God's Divine Will with Father Joseph Iannuzzi. >> [music]