Willing Holiness
“I do not do the good that I want and do the harm I do not want. As St Paul mentions in his letter to the Romans (7,19), each one of us can make this sad statement. In the face of a duty that falls upon us, in the presence of a clearly proposed good, we often lack courage, energy and willpower. To want with energy and perseverance is something infinitely rare nowadays.
The most important goal of our life is our sanctification. God created us only to know him, love him, serve him, and thereby deserve to possess him eternally. To realize this important work of our sanctification, it is necessary to want it and to want it with indomitable courage. With the help of grace, we want to save ourselves, to supernaturalize ourselves, in short we want to become holy! This goal we must never lose sight of, the thought of our eternal salvation must take precedence over all our occupations.
For this, it is necessary to strengthen our will whose failures are all too familiar to us, it is therefore necessary to actively implement this faculty: we must know want! Want , want to pray, want to accomplish perfectly and faithfully his daily tasks, want to break such a fault, such a bad inclination, such a relationship compromising our eternal future, want to reform some traits of our character, want to lower our pride that hurts our neighbor and more still the Heart of Jesus, want to fulfill the divine will in all things …
There is no enterprise that Holiness requires as much as a courageous desire! One day, the sister of St. Thomas Aquinas, with whom she spoke, asked him: “What must be done to become a saint? “The saint answered her” The will “and as she insisted, he repeated:” We must want it and still want it! Well, let’s know what we want too. We Want God and that without bending! It is the whole science of life, it is also its fecundity and its strength, its security and its honor. (Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart Bernaud)