The most beautiful act is the abandonment in God’s will
When recently my dear beloved mother was hospitalized due to her old age, this act brought within myself anguish and great internal suffering. However, as the Lord gave me the grace of praying the Holy Spirit made it apparent to me that if I entrust myself in God’s hands He will really take care of this situation in a magnificent way, as a loving eternal Father would.
In my prayer, the Holy Spirit helped me go through Volume 8 of the Book of Heaven by the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta. In fact, in the entry of June 23, 1907, she wrote the following:
As I was in my usual state, blessed Jesus would not come, and I was thinking to myself about which would be the most beautiful act, and most pleasing to our Lord, which might more easily induce Him to come: sorrow for one’s own sins or resignation? In the meantime, He came for just a little, and told me: “Daughter, the most beautiful act, and most pleasing to Me, is the abandonment in my Will – but so great, that the soul would remember no more that her being exists; rather, everything for her is Divine Will. Even though sorrow for one’s own sins is good and praiseworthy, yet, it does not destroy one’s own being; while abandoning oneself completely in my Will destroys one’s own being, and makes one reacquire the Divine Being. Therefore, by abandoning herself in my Will, the soul gives Me more honor, because she gives Me everything I can demand of the creature, reacquiring, in Me, that which had come out of Me. And the soul comes to reacquire that which alone she should reacquire – that is, she reacquires God, with all the goods that God possesses. However, as long as the soul remains completely in the Will of God, she reacquires God; but as she goes out of my Will, she reacquires her own being, with all the evils of the corrupted nature.”
The reality that the most beautiful act is the abandonment in the Will of God consoled me a lot during this troubling time. It helped me appreciate more the great prayer of abandonment by St Charles de Foucauld. Even in this most famous prayer the acquisition of God as Father is everything.
Father, I abandon myself into your hands, do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands, I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart;
For I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself:
To surrender myself into your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence. For you are my Father.’
This best-known prayer, the Prayer of Abandonment, which captures his spirit of simplicity and humble trust in God, was written during his years as a Trappist monk. It is a prayer that is placed on the lips of Christ during his final moments on the cross. Yet it reveals something of Charles’ own intimate relationship with the Lord that pervaded his entire life. Charles introduces the meditation with these words: It is the last prayer of our Master, of our Beloved . . . may it be ours. . . . May it not only be the prayer of our last moment but that of all our moments.
As a loving Father, God is worthy of our complete trust. Jesus himself shows us how complete this trust in the Father can be, even when faced with torture and death. I abandon myself into your hands summarizes the dying words of Jesus from the cross: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Do with me what you will is the spirit of someone who subordinates their own will to the will of the Father, knowing that God’s will for them is always what is most loving. It isn’t that our own wills don’t matter or cease to exist. Such an act of faith comes from someone who has come to trust that what God wants is what is best, despite how difficult it might be for us to see this and accept it.
And Charles de Foucauld’s prayer extraordinarily reminds of The Surrender Novena by the Servant of God Father Donildo Ruotolo. Here is the text for this most powerful novena given to him personally by Jesus Himself:
Day 1
Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying?
Leave the care of your affairs to me
and everything will be peaceful.
I say to you in truth that every act of true,
blind, complete surrender to me
produces the effect that you desire
and resolves all difficult situations.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,take care of everything!
Day 2
Surrender to me does not mean to fret,
to be upset, or to lose hope,
nor does it mean offering to me a worried prayer
asking me to follow you
and change your worry into prayer.
It is against this surrender,
deeply against it, to worry,
to be nervous
and to desire to think about the consequences of anything.
It is like the confusion that children feel
when they ask their mother to see to their needs,
and then try to take care of those needs for themselves
so that their childlike efforts get in their mother’s way.
Surrender means to placidly close the eyes of the soul,
to turn away from thoughts of tribulation
and to put yourself in my care, so that only I act.
Saying You take care of it.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!
Day 3
How many things I do when the soul,
in so much spiritual and material need turns to me,
looks at me and says to me;
“You take care of it,”
then closes its eyes and rests.
In pain you pray for me to act,
but that I act in the way you want.
You do not turn to me, instead,
you want me to adapt to your ideas.
You are not sick people who ask the doctor to cure you,
but rather sick people who tell the doctor how to.
So do not act this way,
but pray as I taught you in the Our Father:
“Hallowed be thy Name”,
that is, be glorified in my need.
“Thy kingdom come”,
that is, let all that is in us
and in the world be in accord with your kingdom.
“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”,
that is, in our need,
decide as you see fit for our temporal and eternal life.
If you say to me truly:
“Thy will be done”
which is the same as saying:
“You take care of it”
I will intervene with all my omnipotence,
and I will resolve the most difficult situations.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Day 4
You see evil growing instead of weakening?
Do not worry,
Close your eyes and say to me with faith:
“Thy will be done, You take care of it.”
I say to you that I will take care of it,
and that I will intervene as does a doctor
and I will accomplish miracles when they are needed.
Do you see that the sick person is getting worse?
Do not be upset,
but close your eyes and say
“You take care of it.”
I say to you that I will take care of it,
and that there is no medicine
more powerful than my loving intervention.
By my love, I promise this to you.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Day 5
And when I must lead you on a path different from the one you see,
I will prepare you;
I will carry you in my arms;
I will let you find yourself,
like children who have fallen asleep in their mother’s arms,
on the other bank of the river.
What troubles you and hurts you immensely are your reason,
your thoughts and worry,
and your desire at all costs to deal with what afflicts you.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Day 6
You are sleepless;
you want to judge everything,
direct everything and see to everything
and you surrender to human strength,
or worse – to men themselves,
trusting in their intervention,
– this is what hinders my words and my views.
Oh how much I wish from you this surrender,
to help you and how I suffer when I see you so agitated!
Satan tries to do exactly this:
to agitate you and to remove you from my protection
and to throw you into the jaws of human initiative.
So, trust only in me,
rest in me,
surrender to me in everything.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Day 7
I perform miracles in proportion to your full surrender to me
and to your not thinking of yourselves.
I sow treasure troves of graces
when you are in the deepest poverty.
No person of reason, no thinker,
has ever performed miracles,
not even among the saints.
He does divine works whosoever surrenders to God.
So don’t think about it any more,
because your mind is acute
and for you it is very hard to see evil
and to trust in me
and to not think of yourself.
Do this for all your needs,
do this all of you
and you will see great continual silent miracles.
I will take care of things,
I promise this to you.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Day 8
Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away
on the flowing current of my grace;
close your eyes and do not think of the present,
turning your thoughts away from the future
just as you would from temptation.
Repose in me, believing in my goodness,
and I promise you by my love that if you say
“You take care of it,” I will take care of it all;
I will console you,
liberate you and guide you.
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Day 9
Pray always in readiness to surrender,
and you will receive from it great peace and great rewards,
even when I confer on you the grace of immolation,
of repentance and of love.
Then what does suffering matter?
It seems impossible to you?
Close your eyes and say with all your soul,
“Jesus, you take care of it.”
Do not be afraid, I will take care of things
and you will bless my name by humbling yourself.
A thousand prayers cannot equal one single act of surrender,
remember this well.
There is no novena more effective than this:
(Repeat the following prayer 10 times.)
O Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
take care of everything!
Mother, I am yours now and forever.
Through you and with you
I always want to belong completely to Jesus.
Aided with these powerful means and, above all, coupled with an open heart, how beautiful it is to abandon oneself in God’s most saving will!
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
