Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.

Good evening, everyone!

Our responsorial psalm for today speaks of the bold declaration of someone ready to do the
will of the Father.

It is imperative for all of us, followers of Christ to always seek the will of God. Our founder in his
diary once wrote, “When it comes to the will of the Father, all other will should be set aside.”

In the course of our daily actions, there is always a constant battle between two forces: our will
versus the will of God. But most often than not, when we are faced with the commotion of
these two forces, we give in easily to our will rather than the will of the Father, owing to our
nature of human weakness, our distorted sense of freedom, and most of the time, our ego
which makes us believe that our will is also the will of the Father, which can be tricky and
utterly dangerous if not reflected upon.

The French philosopher, Rene Descartes, once asserted in his Rule number 12 from his treatise,
Rules for the Directions of the Mind, that in the pursuit of knowledge, in our search for truth,
we should learn when to stop, because there are actually truths which lie beyond human
accessibility, which means that there is no way we can grasp them because they go beyond the
limit of our human understanding. So at some point, we should stop. “Itigil na natin.”

By reflecting on this, I have come to relate this to our individual desires. All of us here have
varied desires in life. and we are willing, with no second thought, to go to great lengths just to
attain what we want, our dreams and aspirations. We can even cross seas and travel to distant
lands, mapuntahan lang ang mga bagay na gusto natin --- kasi gusto natin eh. Just like what
happened to the crowd in our Gospel today. People from Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea,
Transjordania, and the region of Tyre and Sidon, followed and came to Jesus because they
wanted to personally witness what they heard about Him.

My dear brothers, not all of the things we want are the ones we actually need. Thus we have to
ask the question, is this the will of God for me? and this can only be answered when we listen
intently to the voice of God through our daily reflection and meditation. God speaks in the
silence of our hearts and through the promptings of the Holy Spirit which allows us to read and
understand the signs of times.

And one of the signs we can use is to ponder upon the things that God gave us and especially
the ones He had taken away from us. Ano bang mga bagay ang ibinigay ng Panginoon sa atin?
At ano naman ang mga bagay na paulit-ulit nang inaalis ng Diyos sa buhay natin? Reflecting
upon these questions, in one way or another, would help us to know when to stop pursuing our
vain desires to give way to God’s ultimate desire for us. Because God sometimes grants the
things that we want, not because we need them but because he wants us to stop and make us
realize that it is not for us by removing them from our lives. And that in itself demands a great
deal of pain.

But why would God allow all of these to happen? The pain of letting go for letting God.

This is because he wants us to treat them as our cross. He wants us to faithfully carry it and feel
its excruciating weight moving towards our own triumph just as He did.

When Descartes asserted that stopping to search for truth is not a sign of ignorance, the same
goes for our will and desires. Putting a halt in our desires and wants is not a sign of failures
because we are treating them as our triumphant cross. It is not an ugly thing.

This made me reflect that even our cross can be beautiful.

It’s a beautiful thing….Because they somehow represent the things that we love...Hindi nga lang
para atin.

But you know what is more beautiful? It is following the will of God even if it takes sacrificing
our own will. Because it will always be worth-sacrificing for. Amen.