There are great subjective advantages to such an act of resignation to God’s Will. The first is this: we escape from the power which the “accidents” of life had over us. The accidents of life are those things which interrupt our ordered existence and cancel our plans—mishaps such as a sickness which forces us to defer a trip, or the summons of the telephone when we are tuned in to our favorite program on the radio. It is a medical fact that tense and worried people have more accidents resulting in fractures than those who have a clear conscience and a Divine Goal in life.
Some men and women complain that they “never get a break,” that the world is their enemy, that they have “bad luck.” A person resigned to God’s Holy Will utters no such complaint; whatever comes along, he welcomes it. The disorganized, self-centered soul tries to impose his own will on the universe—and always fails. He is in constant pain for the same reason that a stomach is in pain if it tries a diet of ground glass—it is living contrary to the Divine purpose.
Every commonplace event now becomes a mystery because it is the bearer of the Divine Will. Nothing is insignificant or dull—everything can be sanctified, just as goats and sheep, fish and wheat, grapes and eyes of needles were given dignity as parables of the Kingdom of God.
Things the worldly-wise would trample under foot become as precious to Saints as pearls, for they see “sermons in stones and good in everything.” Even the bitterest of life’s punishments are known to be joys in the making, rare spiritual treasures underneath their harsh and ugly appearances.
Fulton Sheen
Things the worldly-wise would trample under foot become as precious to Saints as pearls, for they see “sermons in stones and good in everything.” Even the bitterest of life’s punishments are known to be joys in the making, rare spiritual treasures underneath their harsh and ugly appearances.
Fulton Sheen