Thy Will Be Done — Day 35: Three Levels of Conformity to God's Will

DAY 35

Three Levels of Conformity to God's Will

By Gretchen Filz
“Behold the true sign of a totally perfect soul: when one has reached the point of giving up his will so completely that he no
longer seeks, expects or desires to do ought but that which God wills.” —St. Bernard of Clairvaux

As we take a broad look at a life of abandonment, putting together all we’ve learned so far, it’s clear that conforming our will to
God’s will is truly a discipline: we can’t do it perfectly all at once, or only once. It is a daily habit; a way of living; an act of the will
which we must repeat so that we can learn to practice it perfectly.
And we don’t have to learn it by ourselves—if we’re committed to this way of life, God Himself will show us the way. This is His
divine promise: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and
he will make straight your paths” (Prov. 3:5-6).

Three Degrees of Conformity to the Will of God

The more we surrender our will to God, abandoning ourselves completely to His divine providence, the more our will becomes one
with His. “Where there is Trust in God, the will is united to God” (Fr. Jeremias Drexel, S.J.).
The great masters of the spiritual life distinguish three stages by which a soul submits to the will of God. As a soul increases in
trust, it also increases in charity and intimacy with Him. St. Bernard of Clairvaux describes these three stages simply and clearly:

“Seeing that the Scripture says, God has made all for His own glory (Isa. 43.7), surely His creatures ought to
conform themselves, as much as they can, to His will. ... And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our

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 Thy Will Be Done — Day 35: Three Levels of Conformity to God's Will

desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day:
‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10).” [...]
“The beginner, moved by fear, patiently bears the Cross of Christ; the one who has already made
some progress on the road to perfection, inspired by hope, carries it cheerfully; the perfect soul,
consumed by love, embraces it ardently.” —St. Bernard of Clairvaux

This teaching on the three degrees of conformity has been further unpacked in later generations of spiritual writers, as
summarized below.
The First Degree: Beginners in the Love of God
In the first degree of conformity, the soul loves the will of God when life is going well—for example, when the soul is experiencing
interior consolations and exterior prosperity. “However,” says St. Francis de Sales, “this is a love without contradiction,
repugnance and effort: for who would not love so worthy a will in so agreeable a form?” This love is easy yet also imperfect,
because it only does its duty in order to avoid sin. It is a genuine love of God, but it is mixed with self-love and the fear of
suffering.

“Beginners, upheld by the fear of God, do not indeed love pain, but rather seek to escape it. However, they
choose to suffer rather than to offend God and, though groaning under the weight of the Cross, they endure it
in patience, they are resigned.”
—Rev. Fr. A. Tanquerey

The Second Degree: Advanced in the Love of God

In the second degree of conformity the soul readily submits to God’s will, and carries its crosses not only patiently but cheerfully
because they are lovingly sent by God for our good. This degree of love is more perfect, says St. Francis de Sales, “for it leads us
to the renouncing and quitting of our own will, and makes us abstain from and forbear some pleasures, though not all.” Some
imperfection remains, however, because although the Cross is carried with increasing joy, it is not yet loved ardently.

“Those who have already made some progress are sustained by the hope and the desire of heavenly things,
and though they do not yet seek the Cross, they willingly carry it with a certain joy, knowing that each new
pang represents an additional degree of glory: ‘Going, they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming,
they shall come with joyfulness carrying their seed’ (Ps. 125: 6-7)."
—Rev. Fr. A. Tanquerey

The Third Degree: Perfect in the Love of God

In the third degree of conformity, the soul submits to God’s will in imitation of Christ, no matter what the cost to itself. It loves
God’s will not only in prosperity, but equally (and even more so) in the pains and trials that divine providence ordains and permits
for the greater glory of God. “To love sufferings and afflictions for the love of God is the supreme point of most holy charity,”
says St. Francis de Sales, “for there is nothing therein to receive our affection save the will of God only; there is great
contradiction on the part of nature; and we not only forsake pleasures, but embrace torments and labours.” The soul loves its
sufferings for His sake, because it is the love of God who has willed them.

The perfect led by love, go further. To glorify the God they love, to become more like our Lord, they go forth to
meet the Cross, they long for it and embrace it lovingly not because it is in itself lovable, but because it offers
them the means of proving their love for God and for Christ. Like the Apostles, they rejoice that they are
counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name of Jesus. Like St. Paul, they rejoice in their tribulations. This
last degree is called holy abandonment ...
—Rev. Fr. A. Tanquerey

This highest degree of conformity is what we find in Sacred Scripture in the lives of the early Christians.

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 Thy Will Be Done — Day 35: Three Levels of Conformity to God's Will

The apostles had arrived at this perfect conformity, when, after having been cast into prison and scourged by
the Jews, “they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer
reproach for the name of Jesus.”
So had St. Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians, “I am filled with comfort, I exceedingly abound with joy, in
all our tribulation.”
Nor was this virtue peculiar to apostolical men; — it shone forth in the primitive Christians. “You received with
joy the plundering of your goods,” wrote St. Paul to the Hebrews, lately converted to the faith, “knowing that
you have a better and permanent substance.”
And St. James exhorts all the faithful to this perfection: “My brethren,” he says, “count it all joy, when you
shall fall into divers temptations,” that is, into “divers trials and afflictions,” as the context plainly shows.
It is a common thing, says [St. John of Avila], to thank God for favors and blessings; but it is peculiar to the
just, to be grateful for afflictions and misfortunes.
—Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J.

Three Kinds of Loving Relationships

Conforming to the will of God isn’t meant to make us unhappy slaves (that is what sin does), but rather to make us the free and
happy children of God. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom 8:14).
God the Father described these three stages of love as three different kinds of relationships in His dialogue with St. Catherine of
Siena: the love of a servant, the love of a friend, and the love of a son or daughter.
The love of a servant is devoted to doing the will of her master; but this love is imperfect because there’s an element of fear that
obeys for fear of punishment. Next is the love of a friend, which is more intimate due to a greater sharing of life together; but this
love is not yet perfect, because something of the self remains. Finally, filial love (the love due from a son or daughter) is the
highest and most perfect love, because a child is truly united to its father in all things: “Son, you are always with me, and all that
is mine is yours” (Lk. 15:31).

In the beginning, a man serves Me imperfectly through servile fear, but, by exercise and perseverance, he
arrives at the love of delight, finding his own delight and profit in Me. This is a necessary stage, by which he
must pass, who would attain to perfect love, to the love that is of friend and son. I call filial love perfect,
because thereby, a man receives his inheritance from Me, the Eternal Father, and because ... a friend grows
into a son.
—God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena

Making Our Will One With God

Learning about these three stages of conformity to the divine will is highly instructive, because it removes any self-deception that
may creep into our minds whereby we think we trust and love God very much, when in truth we’ve hardly advanced in trust and
love at all. Our willingness to submit our will to suffering for His sake shows what we truly are—whether we’re a servant, a friend,
or a child of God.
God proved His love for us by sacrificing Himself on the Cross. How do we prove our love for Him, unless we sacrifice ourselves
—our will—to Him in return? As St. Maximilian Kolbe said, “Let us remember that love lives through sacrifice and is nourished by
giving. Without sacrifice, there is no love.”
However, the difficulty of a life of abandonment shouldn’t discourage us, because it is the path of the freedom of the children of
God. We don’t have to be too concerned with where we are; instead, we should focus on making daily efforts to grow in our trust
and love for God. He Himself will give us the grace to conform our will to His more perfectly. It is up to us to respond to this grace
to the best of our ability, no matter how long it may take and how many times we may fail. Like any parent, our heavenly Father
likes to see that we’re trying. St. Padre Pio encourages us to “Be content to progress in slow steps until you have legs to run and
wings with which to fly.”

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 Thy Will Be Done — Day 35: Three Levels of Conformity to God's Will

Our stepping stones are found right before us in our ordinary daily duties:

If they could realise the merit concealed in the actions of each moment of the day: I mean in each of the daily
duties of their state of life, and if they could be persuaded that sanctity is founded on that to which they give
no heed as being altogether irrelevant, they would indeed be happy.
If, besides, they understood that to attain the utmost height of perfection, the safest and surest way is to
accept the crosses sent them by Providence at every moment, that the true philosopher’s stone is
submission to the will of God which changes into divine gold all their occupations, troubles, and sufferings,
what consolation would be theirs! What courage would they not derive from the thought that to acquire the
friendship of God, and to arrive at eternal glory, they had but to do what they were doing, but to suffer what
they were suffering, and that what they wasted and counted as nothing would suffice to enable them to
arrive at eminent sanctity: far more so than extraordinary states and wonderful works.
—Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade

What does perfect conformity to the will of God look like in practice? We will turn to our supreme example of doing the will of
God: the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Coming in Day 36 . . .
The Example of Jesus