Practical Devotion: God Above All

Too right is this prayer. The sun, the moon, the stars perfectly fulfill God's will; every blade of grass, every grain of sand fulfills it; indeed, no hair falls off your head if God does not want it. But unreasonable creatures carry it out mechanically; you, reasonable creature, know that God is your Creator, your Lord, and that his just, good, holy law must be the rule of your will; So why do you follow your whim and your passion? And dare you stand up against God?

God above all. What must triumph above all thought? God. The rest is worth nothing: honors, riches, glory, ambition are nothing! What must you lose rather than lose God? Everything: goods, health, life. What is the whole world worth, if you lose your soul? ... Who must you obey? To God rather than to men. If you do not now lovingly do God's will, do you will forcibly do for all eternity in hell! Which suits you more?

Balm of resignation. Have you never tasted how sweet it is to say: God's will be done? In afflictions, in tribulations, the thought that God sees us and wants us thus as a test, how it comforts! In poverty, in privations, in the loss of loved ones, weeping at the feet of Jesus, say: God's will be done, how it comforts and consoles! In temptations, in the fears of the soul, how it reassures to say: Everything as you want, but help me. - And you despair?

PRACTICE. - Repeat in every opposition today: Thy will be done.