This is the Will of God: your Sanctification - Fr. Benoît Wailliez(2018-02-25)
¡°This is the will of God : your sanctification¡±.
These are the words of Saint Paul in today's Epistle. We must want to become saints. Let us 1st consider the necessity of grace. The Lord said: ¡°Without Me you can do nothing¡± and He added: ¡°We have not chosen me; I have chosen you¡±. This shows the primacy of grace.
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St Paul says: ¡°God has loved us even we were dead that reason of our sins¡±. And to the Philippians: ¡°Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who, of his good pleasure, works in you both the will and the performance¡±.
So, grace is absolutely necessary for salvation. But how are we going to obtain grace? We need to pray. The Council of Trent has declared: ¡°God does not command the impossible; He warns you to do what you can, and to ask what you cannot; and He helps so that you can¡±.
And further: ¡°Since God owes nothing to anyone, we must ask Him in prayer those things we need, seeing that He has constituted prayer as a necessary means for the accomplishments of our desires¡±. For instance, in order to obtain the grace of strength to do our duty of state, to overcome temptations, we need to pray.
Thirdly, the spirit of prayer. "We ought to pray always" says Our Lord in St. Luke's Gospel. Prayer is like breathing: it must be continued and remain uninterrupted. The only way to remain alive, that is not to sin mortally, is prayer. That's God's plan. We have to pray. To pray more. To pray on our knees, with perseverance.
We must pray, that is, we must not just recite prayers. We need the spirit of prayer. In the Introit, we have heard these words sung: To Thee have I lifted up my soul". We must pray "in spirit and in truth". The Council of Trent says: "He prays in this manner whose prayer proceeds from an interior and intense ardour of soul". Just like Our Lord on Mount Tabor. "He went up the mountain to pray", St. Luke says.
To sum up, let us remember the words of Saint Paul: "This is the will of God: yor sanctification". We need grace to become saints and the only way for us to obtain grace is prayer.
May our good Mother teach us how to pray and obtain the spirit, so as to obtain God's grace her on earth and the everlasting vision of God in heaven. Amen.
Fr. Benoît Wailliez