Consecration to the Divine Will of God is Reflected in Scripture and is a Deep Commitment - a Reflection
Many people who felt they were ready prayed the Consecration Prayer to the Divine Will as I also did. This was a solemn promise to God to make the Divine Will “my life, the centre of my intelligence, the enraptured of my heart and of my whole being. In this heart, the human will will no longer have life; I will banish it forever and form the new Eden of peace, of happiness and of love…I promise You to live always in the Divine Will.”
So, the day after our Consecration, Joshua gives us a Warning! I was sitting in the pew at Mass listening to the First Reading from Joshua 24:14-29 and my earls perked up when I heard these words: …Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel…, and addressed them, saying: “Fear the Lord and serve him completely and sincerely. Cast out the gods your fathers…and serve the Lord. If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve…As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” The people answered, “Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” Joshua in turn said to the people, “You may not be able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God who will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If, after the good he has done for you, you forsake the Lord and serve strange gods, he will do evil to you and destroy you.” But the people answered Joshua, “We will still serve the Lord.” Joshua therefore said to the people, “You are your own witnesses that you have chosen to serve the Lord.” They replied, “We are, indeed!” Joshua continued: “Now, therefore, put away the strange gods that are among you and turn your hearts to the Lord the God of Israel.” Then the people promised Joshua, “We will serve the Lord, our God, and obey his voice.” …
Even though the Israelites assured Joshua with their own ‘solemn promise’ before his passing that they would serve and obey the Lord, he still warned them,“You may not be able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God who will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.”
At first, this statement seemed very discouraging to me, yet I believed there was an important message in it for us all who have just made our own solemn promise to the Lord. So I did some digging to find out what Joshua actually meant by these words of warning:
According to Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments of Joshua 24:14,
“God’s service is not, as you seem to fancy, a slight and easy thing, but it is a work of great difficulty, and requires great care, and courage, and resolution; and when I consider the infinite purity of God, that he will not be mocked or abused, …and while the obligations which God has laid upon you in this land are fresh in remembrance, I cannot but fear that, after my decease, you will think the service of God burdensome, and therefore will cast it off and revolt from him, if you do not carefully avoid all occasions of idolatry…He will not endure a partner in his worship; you cannot serve him and idols together. If you who own yourselves his people and servants shall willfully transgress his laws, he will not let this go unpunished in you!…For as, if you be sincere and faithful in God’s service, you will have admirable benefits by it; so, if you be false to your professions, and forsake him whom you have so solemnly avouched to be your God, he will deal more severely with you than with any people in the world.
(https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/rbc/joshua-24.html)
According to Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible of Joshua 24:15-18
Joshua brings the Israelites to express full purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord. They must come off from all confidence in their own sufficiency, else their purposes would be in vain. The service of God being made their deliberate choice, Joshua binds them to it by a solemn covenant. He set up a monument of it. In this affecting manner Joshua took his last leave of them; if they perished, their blood would be upon their own heads.
Though the house of God, the Lord's table, and even the walls and trees before which we have uttered our solemn purposes of serving him, would bear witness against us if we deny him, yet we may trust in him, that he will put his fear into our hearts, that we shall not depart from him!
(https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/mhn/joshua-24.html)
In the Book of Heaven, the words of these commentaries above take on Divine Life:
VOL. 16 – August 28, 1923
Jesus tells Luisa, “My daughter, having placed in you the ownership of my Will, I want you not only to possess It, but to know how to keep It well, to cultivate It, to expand It, so as to multiply It. Therefore, pains, mortifications, vigilance, patience, and also my very privation, serve to expand and to keep the boundaries of my Will in your soul. It is not enough to possess, but one must know how to possess…So, it is not possessing that renders man rich and happy, but knowing how to cultivate well what he possesses.So it is with my graces, my gifts, and especially my Will, which I have placed in you as Queen. It wants from you the food - the crafting of your pains, of your acts. In everything, It wants that your will, fully submitted to It, would give It the honours and the cortege which befit It as Queen. And in everything you do and suffer, It will have, ready, the food to feed your soul. And so, you on one side, my Will on the other, will expand the boundaries of my Supreme Will within you.”
VOL. 26 - April 28, 1929
…Jesus continued, saying: “My daughter, it is a prerogative of my Divine Volition to place everything It possesses in safety. When It enters into the soul, as the possessor of her, It places all things in safety: It places sanctity, grace, beauty, all virtues, in safety; and so that everything may be safe, It substitutes them in the soul with Its own Divine Sanctity, Its Beauty, Its virtues – all in a divine manner; and placing on her Its seal, which is untouchable by any change, It renders the creature untouchable by any danger. So, for one who lives in my Will there is nothing to fear any more, because It has secured everything with Its divine security. On the other hand, the human will renders everything unsafe, even sanctity itself. The virtues that are not under the continuous dominion of my Fiat are subject to continuous dangers and continuous oscillations; passions have the ways open to put everything upside down, and cast to the ground the virtues, the sanctity, formed with many sacrifices. If the continuous vivifying and nourishing virtue of my Will is not present, which closes all doors and all ways to all evils, the human will has door and ways to let the enemy, the world, self-esteem, miseries, disturbances, enter, which are the woodworm of virtues and of sanctity; and when there is the woodworm, there is not sufficient strength to remain firm and persevering in good…Therefore, until Our Will reigns, which will spread the divine order, Its firmness and harmony, and Its perennial day of light and of peace in the midst of creatures, everything will be in danger for him and for Us; Our things themselves will remain in the nightmare of danger, and will not be able to give to creatures the abundant goods which they contain.”
Conclusion:
May we take these words of our Lord to heart and make good on our promise made yesterday to cooperate with all the spiritual help we are given by our Lord, our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and our Guardian Angels to never do our own will but only the Will of God!
Fiat!
May we take these words of our Lord to heart and make good on our promise made yesterday to cooperate with all the spiritual help we are given by our Lord, our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and our Guardian Angels to never do our own will but only the Will of God!
Fiat!
by Denise Lobo
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