Exploring God's Will

[BarbTherese]

I just wanted to share this beautiful quote too :) there's so much about God that I didn't know about, but found out from the things He's told the Saints and others He chose to give messages too. It all fits in with Scripture so well too. There are so many times in Scripture when someone trusted Jesus and the trust and humility obtained His answer, like the centurion, the good thief, and many others.

 

"O Jesus, what should I add to these prayers to make them yet more efficacious?" Gertrude once asked. Turning to her with a countenance full of sweetness, Our Saviour replied, "Confidence alone easily obtains all things!"...Once when St Gertrude was troubled with temptations, she implored the Divine assistance. Our Lord, in His exceeding mercy, spoke thus to her: "Anyone suffering from human temptations, who flees to My protection with firm confidence, belongs to those of whom I can say: 'One is My dove, my chosen one out of thousands, who has pierced My Heart with one glance of her eyes.' And this confidence wounds My Heart so deeply that were I unable to relieve such a soul, it would cause My Heart a sadness which all the joys of heaven could not assuage... The confidence that I truly have the power, the wisdom and the goodness to aid a soul faithfully in all her miseries, is the arrow which pierces My Heart, and does such violence to My love that I can never abandon her..." (Our Lord to St Gertrude. From the booklet "St Gertrude the Great, Herald of Divine Love", TAN publishers, page 19).

 

 

Mary'sLittleFlower

 

I did do a response and then accidentally closed the window before posting.  My apologies.  I do not want to dispute St Faustina for saint she is for sure, nor what she experienced - nor necessarily what you have written, Mary'sLittleFlower, rather it is a general subject of God's Justice as something to be afraid of, when It is not -  because to my mind, His Mercy is a function of His Divine Justice - but it took me a while to work out my initial response and then accidentally closed the window without having worked out my response in Word and therefore retaining it.  God's Will it was that I close the window accidentally - but was it His Indicative Will or was it His Permissive Will?

What has just struck me, and in a newer and deeper way, about the message of St Faustina is that The Mercy of The Lord knows no bounds, it is Infinite...............and that there is very much real and actual - very deliberate and freely chosen -  horrific evil per se in this world ............

 

...........and that the time is short - very short. 

 

 One who truly and unreservedly loves Jesus will have His Heart and will ardently desire, like Jesus, that all be saved from the terrible and shocking eternal clutches of satan and it's eternal hell far more horrific than the worst of deliberate and chosen evils on earth in the measure of the suffering to be endured in hell at the whim of satan....and it is far worse than all that.......and we all have free will to choose or reject The Mercy of Jesus.

 

My apologies once more and I will come back to your post as soon as I can and work on my reply once more.

 

Matthew 11:29
Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls.

[BarbTherese]

I think probably we have been conditioned into thinking of God’s Justice as this terrible fiery sword to strike the wicked. The moment we hear of The Justice of God, we tend to ‘cringe’ through conditioning. We think of His Mercy as somehow opposite to His Justice – rather they are both precisely the same in that the Mercy of God flows FROM His Justice.

 Rather God’s Justice could be said to be ‘flowing from’  the Omnipotent Power of God to know the precise truth of all matters.  To be the Sole and Absolute, Only, Judge of man in all matters. What is Ultimately Real and True in our own selfhoods.  Sometimes, we think that we do, but we do not.  We do not understand all the factors pressing in on us at any one moment, including the actual real and true effect of original sin and many other matters as well that are just beyond, totally beyond, our ability.

I just might be in Truth, in The Lord, more guilty than I realize or not as guilty as I think I am on any matter of serious sin – or any other matter involving guilt or lack of it.  Only God Himself can judge this about every single human being.

Consider the Prayer of David in Psalm 50.  It is an admission of very real failure and of sorrow for failure.  It is also a statement of the results of that admission :

 

 

[6] To thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before thee:

that thou mayst be justified in thy words and mayst overcome when thou art judged.

 

 For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me.

 

For behold thou hast loved truth: the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast made manifest to me.

Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness: and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice.

[11] Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels.Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and strengthen me with a perfect spirit. I will teach the unjust thy ways: and the wicked shall be converted to thee.

 

It is not our direct fault that we are conceived with original sin marking every single aspect of our soul as David (rather cheekily J) points out to his Creator.  We are from birth, due to original sin, more inclined towards “not good” (or worse!) and our own selfish whims (or worse!) than we are to Goodness Itself or to The Lord.  And so from the moment we tread The Way of Jesus, we are engaged in a struggle with ourselves somewhere or other, somehow or other, to some degree or other.  Grace is with us, but our very nature, due to original sin, seems often to try to pull us away from that Grace and The Way of Jesus.  We struggle!  Sometimes we have a win, sometimes a failure.

The Lord sees our stumbling along from birth and travelling His Way -  and His Justice demands that He is Merciful to His stumbling mumbling creatures along their journey in life. They have been marked by failure (as it were : original sin) from the moment of their conception.  But He has gifted them with free will and so we must choose His Mercy; however, some seem to even despise the Mercy of God – and it just might be that only God Himself knows why and not even the person involved.  In that light, God Judges the person as claiming His Mercy or rejecting it outright. 

Hence, God’s Mercy flows from His Justice.  Because God indeed is the only Truly Just One.

 

Pheww! Second time I have tried to explain my thinking, I am hoping that it comes across.  If it doesn’t then challenges to my concept and questions relating to same will engage reflective thought and perhaps we can arrive at as much of the truth of the matter as we can.  Nothing wrong nor amiss in challenges and questions.  These mean that the truth of the matter may not yet be exposed.  Nothing wrong in being wrong – we are human and unless one gets used to, and can admit, being wrong now and then when one is indeed wrong (and we are sometimes) then we will be in denial of our own faulted human nature.  We are not claiming our humanity.

All except my son, laughingly:  "Mum, I am ALWAYS right!" (still has the delusions of immaturity............. and of his Mum rather regularly  .......).............

[BarbTherese]

Mary'sLittleFlower.  I must apologize to you again.  I did not mean to bring St Gertrude from your post into my posts. 

Rather the subject of God's Justice was raised (to my - Bipolar Disorder -  way of thinking) when you quoted St. Faustina in this post: HERE

 

 Mary'sLittleFlower said: There are things that I don't understand about God's will because I'm only a creature... but I think if we simply trust that He is good, then everything else would make sense, even more difficult questions like why is there suffering? why chastisement? even free will... if people distrust God's goodness, they might not see how free will is such a great gift to us, that was given to us with love. Through trust and love, we can understand more about God, and the parts we don't understand, we can have peace with, because we know He's a good Father and knows what is best for us :)

 

 

Really beautiful and so simply put direct to the very heart of the theology of God's Will (and to the subject of this thread) to my mind!

 

Thank you very much, MLF ................ Barb :)

Edited August 2, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[MarysLittleFlower]

Hi Barbara :)

 

I'm back to this thread now.

 

"If anyone knows how to use the multiquote feature, please let me know!  I did it once, and have forgotten how."

 

At the bottom right corner of each post, there's a little button for "quote", and beside it there's "multiquote": you can click the "multiquote" button for any posts you want to quote (lets you do more than one), and then you'll see a red button appear that you can click when you've selected all the posts you want.

 

[MarysLittleFlower]

Mary'sLittleFlower

 

I did do a response and then accidentally closed the window before posting.  My apologies.  I do not want to dispute St Faustina for saint she is for sure, nor what she experienced - nor necessarily what you have written, Mary'sLittleFlower, rather it is a general subject of God's Justice as something to be afraid of, when It is not -  because to my mind, His Mercy is a function of His Divine Justice - but it took me a while to work out my initial response and then accidentally closed the window without having worked out my response in Word and therefore retaining it.  God's Will it was that I close the window accidentally - but was it His Indicative Will or was it His Permissive Will?

What has just struck me, and in a newer and deeper way, about the message of St Faustina is that The Mercy of The Lord knows no bounds, it is Infinite...............and that there is very much real and actual - very deliberate and freely chosen -  horrific evil per se in this world ............

 

...........and that the time is short - very short. 

 

 One who truly and unreservedly loves Jesus will have His Heart and will ardently desire, like Jesus, that all be saved from the terrible and shocking eternal clutches of satan and it's eternal hell far more horrific than the worst of deliberate and chosen evils on earth in the measure of the suffering to be endured in hell at the whim of satan....and it is far worse than all that.......and we all have free will to choose or reject The Mercy of Jesus.

 

My apologies once more and I will come back to your post as soon as I can and work on my reply once more.

 

Matthew 11:29
Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls.

 

I'll take a look at your post! :) personally, I do believe all that St Faustina has written.. I think that God's Justice is something good, since He is good, but the reason it's fearful to us is because of our sins, - because if we were to meet God's Justice while having had rejected His Mercy, we would meet Him with our sins. But if we turn to His Mercy, we can have our sins forgiven. That's just my understanding. I also think if God chastises people, it can be to stop something really evil from happening, or to warn them so they 'wake up' and turn to Him. That's why some people go through suffering, so they can start thinking about God, rather than our worldly amusements etc. But if a good Christian who loves God goes through suffering, or someone like an unborn baby who hasn't sinned personally, I think that's different. For example, if a good Christian suffers, that's more of a cross and sharing in Christ's pain.

 

Our suffering can also help to lessen Purgatory, that's why people also do penance. Or they do penance for others, as a sacrifice to bring them to God - the greatest example of this is a victim soul.

Edited August 2, 2013 by MarysLittleFlower

[MarysLittleFlower]

I think probably we have been conditioned into thinking of God’s Justice as this terrible fiery sword to strike the wicked. The moment we hear of The Justice of God, we tend to ‘cringe’ through conditioning. We think of His Mercy as somehow opposite to His Justice – rather they are both precisely the same in that the Mercy of God flows FROM His Justice.

 Rather God’s Justice could be said to be ‘flowing from’  the Omnipotent Power of God to know the precise truth of all matters.  To be the Sole and Absolute, Only, Judge of man in all matters. What is Ultimately Real and True in our own selfhoods.  Sometimes, we think that we do, but we do not.  We do not understand all the factors pressing in on us at any one moment, including the actual real and true effect of original sin and many other matters as well that are just beyond, totally beyond, our ability.

I just might be in Truth, in The Lord, more guilty than I realize or not as guilty as I think I am on any matter of serious sin – or any other matter involving guilt or lack of it.  Only God Himself can judge this about every single human being.

Consider the Prayer of David in Psalm 50.  It is an admission of very real failure and of sorrow for failure.  It is also a statement of the results of that admission :

 

 

It is not our direct fault that we are conceived with original sin marking every single aspect of our soul as David (rather cheekily J) points out to his Creator.  We are from birth, due to original sin, more inclined towards “not good” (or worse!) and our own selfish whims (or worse!) than we are to Goodness Itself or to The Lord.  And so from the moment we tread The Way of Jesus, we are engaged in a struggle with ourselves somewhere or other, somehow or other, to some degree or other.  Grace is with us, but our very nature, due to original sin, seems often to try to pull us away from that Grace and The Way of Jesus.  We struggle!  Sometimes we have a win, sometimes a failure.

The Lord sees our stumbling along from birth and travelling His Way -  and His Justice demands that He is Merciful to His stumbling mumbling creatures along their journey in life. They have been marked by failure (as it were : original sin) from the moment of their conception.  But He has gifted them with free will and so we must choose His Mercy; however, some seem to even despise the Mercy of God – and it just might be that only God Himself knows why and not even the person involved.  In that light, God Judges the person as claiming His Mercy or rejecting it outright. 

Hence, God’s Mercy flows from His Justice.  Because God indeed is the only Truly Just One.

 

Pheww! Second time I have tried to explain my thinking, I am hoping that it comes across.  If it doesn’t then challenges to my concept and questions relating to same will engage reflective thought and perhaps we can arrive at as much of the truth of the matter as we can.  Nothing wrong nor amiss in challenges and questions.  These mean that the truth of the matter may not yet be exposed.  Nothing wrong in being wrong – we are human and unless one gets used to, and can admit, being wrong now and then when one is indeed wrong (and we are sometimes) then we will be in denial of our own faulted human nature.  We are not claiming our humanity.

All except my son, laughingly:  "Mum, I am ALWAYS right!" (still has the delusions of immaturity............. and of his Mum rather regularly  .......).............

 

Thanks for the explanation! I need to think because I don't know much about the topic. I tried to describe my view of God's Justice in the last post, as I understand it :) I think whatever the case is, St Faustina's writings still make sense because if we ONLY face God's Justice *without* His Mercy, that would be terrible for us because of sin. But I don't remember if St Faustina describes the relation between God's Justice and Mercy beyond this, I need to read a bit :)  I think what she wrote can still be applied, whatever the relation of Justice to Mercy is. Because what Jesus told her, is that He longs to show us Mercy but we need to respond before its' too late to respond, - because then, we'd have to face God's Justice while having rejected His Mercy :( of course His Mercy is something we need to accept.

 

The part I can't figure out, is how God's Justice and Mercy are related... of course, God is fully good, so His Justice is good - but He desires to show us Mercy, because our sins are not good, and without forgiveness we would be lost. I remember reading that God wasn't obligated to show us mercy or to redeem us (in the way that He doesn't "owe" us that), but He chose this because He is loving and compassionate...I really don't know much theology about this topic. I'd have to get back to you on that :)

Mary'sLittleFlower.  I must apologize to you again.  I did not mean to bring St Gertrude from your post into my posts. 

Rather the subject of God's Justice was raised (to my - Bipolar Disorder -  way of thinking) when you quoted St. Faustina in this post: HERE

 

 

Really beautiful and so simply put direct to the very heart of the theology of God's Will (and to the subject of this thread) to my mind!

 

Thank you very much, MLF ................ Barb :)

No problem, you're welcome! :) God bless!

[BarbTherese]

Hi Barbara :)

 

I'm back to this thread now.

 

"If anyone knows how to use the multiquote feature, please let me know!  I did it once, and have forgotten how."

 

At the bottom right corner of each post, there's a little button for "quote", and beside it there's "multiquote": you can click the "multiquote" button for any posts you want to quote (lets you do more than one), and then you'll see a red button appear that you can click when you've selected all the posts you want.

 

Thank you, MLF :)

Do pardon my not knowing, MLF, but I know how to select the various posts I want to quote - what I can't work out is when I go to the reply feature, what do I do then to get the selected posts to paste into Reply.

Where and when does the little red button appear?

 

I don't know when I will be back to this thread either.  It is 9.27am here in Sth Aust on Sat 3.8.13 and I am expecting a visitor at some point.

Also, I have my tasks for today to complete - rest assured "I will be back!"

 

Thank you very much, MLF, for joining in this discussion and even if we don't agree on points.  This is healthy and might been that the truth is yet to unfold..  It is a very interesting subject to me and also on a Catholic Discussion site, the thread sits on the net for others to refer to and many do stumble over the theology of God's Will, as I did for many years indeed.

 

  The most attractive thing to me about religious life was simply that the Rule and Obedience would spell out for me every day God's Will.  But, I used to think, how can I know His Will outside of religious life?  The answer did come to me eventually - but it took some years of confusions and just not being able to understand.  I felt in the laity that I would be in free-fall re God's Will, never really knowing.  All that was cleared up for me..........eventually.  Fortunately too, in my early years of private vows, my director and confessor was a priest and theologian.  Though some things he said I could not really grasp and internalize - that came even years later.  He was a holy man and priest and in all things He simply trusted The Lord with great unswerving confidence.  If the Lord Willed, he knew, I would come to understand eventually and in all things over quite a few years, I did come to understand, grasp and internalize.

 

God bless............Barb

Edited August 3, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

Mary'sLittleChild said................Thanks for the explanation! I need to think because I don't know much about the topic. I tried to describe my view of God's Justice in the last post, as I understand it I think whatever the case is, St Faustina's writings still make sense because if we ONLY face God's Justice *without* His Mercy, that would be terrible for us because of sin. But I don't remember if St Faustina describes the relation between God's Justice and Mercy beyond this, I need to read a bit   I think what she wrote can still be applied, whatever the relation of Justice to Mercy is. Because what Jesus told her, is that He longs to show us Mercy but we need to respond before its' too late to respond, - because then, we'd have to face God's Justice while having rejected His Mercy of course His Mercy is something we need to accept.

 

I would not challenge what St Faustina wrote I hope.  Perhaps she never dealt with the subject.  Or perhaps something went amiss in the translating.  I have never read anywhere (not to state that it IS somewhere) that The Lord’s Mercy flows from His Justice – it is simply a theological point never made by The Church to date to my knowledge, but again to my knowledge certainly nothing stated by The Church contradicts my thinking.  If The Church did contradict and with Her Teaching Authority, I would be docile to that Authority.  In other words, to my knowledge not in contradiction of what The Church has to state, I am free to think my own thoughts.

 

We do indeed need to respond to The Mercy of God before it is too late for us to do so.  However, at Final Judgment we will all know exactly where we stand before God.  Jesus said, not all who say “Lord! Lord!” will enter into His Kingdom.  To my way of thought, this simply means that we cannot be absolutely assured that we are receivers of God’s Loving Mercy.  There is no room for complacency.

 

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/assurance-of-salvation (an important Tract to read!) : Places where Scripture speaks of our ability to know that we are abiding in grace are important and must be taken seriously. But they do not promise that we will be protected from self-deception on this matter. Even the author of Can Anyone Really Know for Sure? admits that there is a false assurance: "The New Testament teaches us that genuine assurance is possible and desirable, but it also warns us that we can be deceived through a false assurance. Jesus declared: ‘Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" shall enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 7:21)."

Sometimes Fundamentalists portray Catholics as if they must every moment be in terror of losing their salvation since Catholics recognize that it is possible to lose salvation through mortal sin. Fundamentalists then hold out the idea that, rather than living every moment in terror, they can have a calm, assured knowledge that they will, in fact, be saved, and that nothing will ever be able to change this fact. 

But this portrayal is in error. Catholics do not live lives of mortal terror concerning salvation. True, salvation can be lost through mortal sin, but such sins are by nature grave ones, and not the kind that a person living the Christian life is going to slip into committing on the spur of the moment, without deliberate thought and consent. Neither does the Catholic Church teach that one cannot have an assurance of salvation. This is true both of present and future salvation. 

 

It is only at Final Judgment will we each and every one of us know for sure where we stand before God.

 

Mary'sLittleChild stated : The part I can't figure out, is how God's Justice and Mercy are related... of course, God is fully good, so His Justice is good - but He desires to show us Mercy, because our sins are not good, and without forgiveness we would be lost. I remember reading that God wasn't obligated to show us mercy or to redeem us (in the way that He doesn't "owe" us that), but He chose this because He is loving and compassionate...I really don't know much theology about this topic. I'd have to get back to you on that

 

I think and I hope I said it in my previous post J  It is precisely because God is Justice and Truth that He knows that from our very conception we are born in original sin and must struggle against it all our lives until death, and for most of us probably.  And original sin was never our doing in the first place, rather the result of Adam and Eve’s sin and thus consequences ‘inbuilt’ into our human nature as I see things .Apart always from some quite extra-ordinary Grace during  our lives. I did give a Bible quote from the Psalms in this connection.  We cannot know personally, nor about anyone else, how and why, to what degree, factors interact in our lives (perhaps beyond our control AND knowledge) to make us prone (inclined towards) the consequences of original sin in our human nature.  We cannot know precisely why a person may live a life of heroic virtue, what factors were interacting.  We might, just might, have SOME knowledge, but not FULL knowledge. We are desperately in need of God’s Just Mercy, His Truth, which is independent, since He is God, of our free will.  “The Spirit blows where He Will”; however, it would be a fatal mistake and gross error of presumption to make presumptions on The Lord’s Mercy.  The Lord will not grant His Mercy if it is not wanted through GRAVE matter constituting mortal sin through FULL KNOWLEDGE and FULL CONSENT............I'm not yelling at you MLT, just want to make something very clear in all these words of mine. 

 

Indeed we will have, and know, our eternal sentence and passed only at Final Judgement only – until then, we live in hope.  There are some exceptions, however, which the Tract from which I have quoted does point out.

 

We are not 'quite there' and presuming too if we think that mortal sin is impossible to us from any point in our pilgrimage here onwards.  A healthy mistrust of our fallen human nature expresses wisdom and prudence.  There is fine balancing with that knowledge and trustful confidence in The Lord's Grace.  How do we fine balance.  It is a Gift of The Holy Spirit.

 

All my opinion, MLF!  :)

Edited August 3, 2013 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

If I have clearly rejected [through Grave matter committed in Full Knowledge and in Full Consent (i.e.mortal sin)], the Mercy of God and only possibly, possibly only, God can truly insight the fullness of all that - but if in our free and unfettered will through mortal sin, we reject God's Mercy outright, then God will respect our free will and His Justice withholds His Mercy since our will is meant IDEALLY WERE IT NOT FOR THE SIN OF ADAM AND EVE & CONSEQUENCES to be completely free of all pressure.  Through original sin and the consequences, is our will completely free and unfettered always?  Even the CCC says that in some instances it is not and outlines those pressures.    But only God Himself knows for sure and at Final Judgement, we will know too.  Amen.

 

The point, short and sweet, is - if I think I might be in a state of mortal sin, then to get to Confession ASAP URGENTLY after expressing sorrow and contrition immediately to God in prayer, resolving to go to Confession to God in prayer - and getting there as soon as possible.  Confession (Sacrament of Reconciliation) is The Lord's Mercy waiting to be asked for Mercy to be granted.

Edited August 3, 2013 by BarbaraTherese