“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose”

God wills only our good; God loves us more than anybody else can or does love us. His will is that no one should lose his soul, that everyone should save and sanctify his soul: “Not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance.” “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” God has made the attainment of our happiness, his glory. Even chastisements come to us, not to crush us, but to make us mend our ways and save our souls.--St. Alphonsus de Ligouri: (1696 – 1787: an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, & scholastic philosopher)

Gospel Text: (MT 12:46-50)
While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.
Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside,
asking to speak with you.”
But he said in reply to the one who told him,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

One of the greatest gifts God has given us is free will. This free will distinguishes us from everything else in the visible universe. It enables us to respond freely to the love of God. And that is what responsibility means: the ability to respond freely to the love of God. Free will, then, is our greatest dignity and most awesome responsibility.

Using our free will in making moral decisions is the very substance, the warp and the woof, of our every day life. Our free will decisions are not only expressive of our unique personality; they are also creative of it. Ultimately, they determine the unique person we will become.

So we spend a lot of time trying to discern what the will of God is for us. But often we think of the will of God as some secret, esoteric mystery that we do not know. We waste a lot of time and energy trying to discern this mysterious will of God. And we are disturbed and anxious because we are not doing the will of God. At the same time we are neglecting the things that are clearly and certainly the will of God.

The Catechism explains that Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude. (CCC# 1731)

And in so doing, we do the will of God and are on our way to the Kingdom of Heaven.