St. Francis de Sales defines love as an active union of human will with the Divine. This love is imitative of Jesus’ love for his Father. St. Francis says that the Christian lives between the “two wills of God”: God’s will to be done, “how it should be”. and the will of God’s good pleasure, “the way it is”. God’s will is manifest not only in the received inspirations (Scripture, church teaching, spiritual direction) of either individuals or communities but also in the events, facts, and existing realities of one’s immediate situation- in the present and often painful reality in which one lives.
Union with God means the human person makes an active, continual, and creative obedience to God’s will. St. Francis calls this union, which is cultivated by prayer, the sacraments, and spiritual direction and expressed by service to neighbors, devotion. Devotion, then, is the “prompt, active and faithful observance of God’s commands, “doing “quickly and lovingly as many good works as possible, both those commanded and those merely counseled or inspired.”
Doing God's Will