The saints in Heaven exclaim, “Thy Will be done.” While God says to the damned in hell, “thy will be done.”
I’ve heard it said that the anthem of those in Hell is Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1458 captures this quote of St. Augustine, “when you hear “man” – this is what God has made; when you hear “sinner” – this is what man himself has made. Destroy what you have made, so that God may save what he has made. . . . When you begin to abhor what you have made…it is then that your good works are beginning, since you are accusing yourself of your evil works. The beginning of good works is the confession of evil works. You do the truth and come to the light.”
What does this have to do with the ‘Thy will/thy will”, “I did it my way” start of this post? Well…be patient with me on this while I try to make sense and connect the dots in my own mind. Remember, I’m not a theologian, just a man conveying what God puts on my heart.
What is it that we own? The one thing that is fully our own? Our sin. “…when you hear “sinner” – this is what man himself has made..”. What is the base foundation of all our sin? OUR will. Our desire to do it MY way is where all sin starts. Eve and Adam in Genesis 3 knew clearly what God’s rule was. Through the chicanery of the serpent, they decided to do things their way. They ate of the tree.
We know God abhors sin, He simply hates any sin – small or large. He has told us one simple metric that He desires and accepts of us – “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect’ Matthew 5:48. Holiness is sinlessness..period. But, we have a different idea and that leads to sin. And, this sin is what we create with our own hands and minds. We take what God calls to perfect holiness and defile it.
Wait though! In this darkness of sin, there is hope. God sent and gave His only Son to reach us and give an example of holiness. He gave a woman (Mary) to show us the exemplar of a holy person. What do these two have in common? They did it God’s way. When faced with temptation, fear, darkness, and more – standing toe to toe with the enemy, they responded “Thy Will be done”, “fiat.”
God gives us Confession and in this Sacrament he washes us clean. But, as much or maybe in a way, more so, in this Sacrament, God teaches us to stop living by ‘my will’ and turn our hearts to accept HIS Will. Step by step we learn to put aside our desire and stop singing that horrible anthem. Step by step we learn what mercy is – the antidote and cure for sin. And, the vitamin to holiness.
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:6