Forming the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat
In a letter addressed to “My good and Reverend Mother,” dated January 28, 1929, mystic Luisa Piccarreta writes, “My Mother, it takes patience, faithfulness, and peace with Jesus, in order to let Him proceed in the work of forming the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat. He wants to be free, and does not want us to be concerned with what we feel.” She concluded her letter by noting that in the light of the Supreme Fiat, “everything is peace, harmony and fortitude.”
Learning the “science of the Divine Will,” as Luisa’s spiritual director St. Hannibal di Francia called it, is truly a life long process. It is similar to a marriage. The roots of genuine love and sacrifice ought to grow deeper and stronger which each passing day until death parts. So too, in our union with Christ, the roots of faith, hope, and charity must forge with increasing depth each day and each moment in the life of the Christian.
Sanctifying grace is the supernatural life of God within the soul, and we receive this grace through the Sacraments. As we grow in grace, we begin to lessen our grip on the self will. Simultaneously, God is given more prerogative to truly reign as the rightful King of our hearts. St. Paul compares the love of a husband and wife to the bond between Christ and His Church in Ephesians 5, and from this we have an insight into how life looks in the Divine Will. The two become one flesh, and from the perspective of Heaven this is true the moment vows are taken. From our vantage point, we see the fruition of this truth become more real with each passing day.
Allowing Jesus to form the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat within our souls requires patience, because we have to relinquish our grip on the human will in order to let Jesus claim rightful ownership. The more control we give Him, the more He is able to mold and shape us into His Image. It is easy to call Jesus our Savior and Messiah, but the challenge is truly calling Him Lord and King. Calling Him “Lord” and “King” means He has authority over us. Our actions, our words, even our thoughts. One might be tempted to think, “It is easy to surrender everything to Jesus.” But how attached are we to our venial sins? To the vices? To whatever degree we acquiesce to these, we make evident the control we give ourselves on the human will. In the Divine Will, there is only grace and virtue. Thus, the need to die to ourselves more and more each day. Consider these passages from Sacred Scripture:
1 Corinthians 15:31 – I die daily, I protest by your glory, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Philippians 1:21 – For to me, to live is Christ; and to die is gain.
1 Peter 2:24 – Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed.
Galatians 2:20 – And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me.
John 3:30 – He must increase, but I must decrease.
So we see that this is a life long process, and God is patient with us in this process. We must not despair in our slips or stumbles or falls, but rather must offer to God our repentance and contrition, in a spirit of humility and fortitude, and rise up again in grace to let God get back to work in our soul. The Holy Spirit will equip us in this process, insofar as we sincerely ask Him to enkindle within us the fire of His Love. Reflect on this beautiful quote from the great St. Maximilian Kolbe:
“Whenever you feel guilty, even if it is because you have consciously committed a sin, a serious sin, something you have kept doing many, many times, never let the devil deceive you by allowing him to discourage you. Whenever you feel guilty, offer all your guilt to the Immaculate, without analyzing it or examining it, as something that belongs to her…
My beloved, may every fall, even if it is serious and habitual sin, always become for us a small step toward a higher degree of perfection. In fact, the only reason why the Immaculate permits us to fall is to cure us from our self-conceit, from our pride, to make us humble and thus make us docile to the divine graces.
The devil, instead, tries to inject in us discouragement and internal depression in those circumstances, which is, in fact, nothing else than our pride surfacing again. If we knew the depth of our poverty, we would not be at all surprised by our falls, but rather astonished, and we would thank God, after sinning, for not allowing us to fall even deeper and still more frequently.”
Jesus wants to be free, as Luisa writes, and does not want us to be concerned with what we feel. This reminds me of Our Lord’s words in His Sermon on the Mount. “Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself.”
Our Lord wants us to be focused solely on seeking the Kingdom of God, and in so doing, He can let the Kingdom of His Divine Fiat reign within us, to the degree that we let Him be free to reign within us. Sometimes, we may not realize just how much authority we give to our feelings. We let our feelings dictate our thoughts, our words, our actions. Our feelings can command us on what we do and what we do not want to do. And so we ask for the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, our Holy Queen. Her entire life only reflected one concern: the reign of God in my heart, the reign of God in the world. That was it. That was what mattered to her. And it is still all that matters to her. She can help us. She can teach us what it means to let Jesus truly be our Lord and our King in every sense of the word. Turn to her, and let her teach you Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence.
In the Divine Will, there is no trace of fear. No trace of anxiety. No trace of apathy. No trace of confusion. No trace of anger. No trace of despair. No trace of depression. No trace of vice. There is only the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And with God comes all the graces of Heaven, of the Saints, of the virtues. It is truly a life long process, and that first step can begin today.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. We love you. Save souls. Amen.
