May 18, 2007

"I love to do God's will... when it happens to coincide with my will!" These words from one of my seminary professors have been burned into my memory. With every Our Father we pray,"...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done..." This sounds similar to, "my kingdom come, my will be done", yet it is very different. If I am honest, then I must admit that there is a battle of the wills going on in my heart. How do I feel when I must give up my will to follow God's will? Most of us rationalize and write a ten page thesis on why we are right, or why God understands. We cover it over with a spray-paint can of piety. So, I say to myself, enough! God does understand, that is true, yet this does not mean that it is o.k. to disobey.

Isn't it time that we stopped treating our faith like fire insurance? I will say that I believe just in case. You never know, it couldn't hurt. Then we only pray for thirty seconds a day, skip Mass, contracept and amass more material goods than we would ever need. For me it boils down to this: Do I really love God? He once said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to become Pope Benedict XVI, the New York Times proclaimed that the cafeteria is now closed. Picking and choosing aspects of the faith is known as cafeteria Christianity. Maybe being a Christian has become too easy? So, there is a battle of the wills going down. I pray every day that I will lose this fight!

Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR

St. Joseph Friary, New York, NY

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