Question: How can I completely give/surrender myself to Him? I insist on “completely”, that is, accepting His will with pleasure and with a heart at peace.
Answer: Perhaps you did not expect this question to be so important, or to require such a lengthy explanation! It is the fundamental question for us as Christians, and we need to understand clearly a very basic element of our life, one that lies at the heart of the Gospel. I have divided my explanation into seven parts. They are all interconnected, and each is equally important. We need to understand them carefully in order to see the whole picture!
1. Introduction
As a starting point, I would like to recall the profound meaning of marriage according to the Western theological Tradition: “it is the mutual gift of a man and a woman!” He gives himself to her, and she gives herself to him. This is the very essence of marriage for the Western Church! As you can see, it is a mutual gift of themselves.
Let us now understand, in a profound and truthful way, who Jesus is for us! The Son of God came from heaven, became man, and gave Himself to each of us on the Cross! He gave Himself totally on the Cross: to you, to me, to every human being! This is very important! This is why He is called the Bridegroom, the Spouse! Because He gave everything to you! He wants you to be His Bride, and so He invites you… He calls you, deep, deep within your heart! Your reply to Him, your response to His amazing Love, is therefore to give yourself to Him, totally!
Do you understand the context of your question?! You are asking me to explain how you can respond fully to His Divine Love, in order to give yourself totally to Him! The context, then, is His Love for you and His call to you, deep within your heart! He is drawing you to Himself; He has lit a spark of His Love in your heart! So, once you have become aware of His Love and His call, your immediate response is to answer Him, to give Him the greatest possible gift: everything, totally, in order to follow Him and love Him, totally and equally!
When you were young, your godparents presented you to Jesus in the Church, and they immersed your whole being, totally, in Him. They did this for you because they believed that this was a good thing to give you: God Himself. This very moment of Baptism is, in fact, the seed of the realisation of this Divine Marriage between you and Jesus! Indeed, Baptism is an immersion in Jesus, in His very Being. It is the gift of yourself to Him. So, in fact, your real Divine Marriage actually took place a few years ago!
But it exists in you in the form of a Divine seed. The spark of this seed has recently been rekindled in you, and, in fact, you want to realise this seed in its fullness: you want to deepen what happened at your Baptism, receiving Jesus fully and giving yourself totally to Him! A Divine exchange!
2. Renewal of Baptism
Once we meet Jesus as adults, hear His call in our hearts, and understand that He wants us totally for Himself, we feel the urge to give Him everything! We do not succeed in doing this immediately! We might initially become intellectually convinced that this is the right thing to do, but we discover that we are unable to do it through our own will! The mind knows that this is the right thing, but the will is still too weak, enslaved by many things and dependent on them!
So, we now begin to maintain contact with Jesus more determinedly, by reading His words in the Gospel and putting them into practice! We then feel that our will is becoming stronger and freer from the slavery of the world and the flesh. After weeks or months, we reach a point where we feel that we can freely leave everything and follow Him. This does not mean at all that we actually have to leave our present state of life physically and enter another one (become a nun or something like that). Not at all! It is through the will that, interiorly, we feel freer to follow Jesus and to do what He wants from us! We can very well remain in the world, without changing a great deal in what we do, but interiorly, we already feel different and willing to follow Him. This step is very important in our lives, and, in a way, it is the renewal of our Baptism, but as adults!
You can consider this step a gift of yourself, and truly it is! But it is only the beginning of a long journey that will lead us to much greater things: the mutual gift in which our whole being is transformed in Jesus! Spiritual marriage, or union with God, on earth! OK.
3. To Give Yourself Totally
In order to understand the dynamics of the gift of yourself to Him and its realisation, I would like to use an image or symbol: the log and the fire! As you know, the log is a piece of wood that we put in the fireplace. We are the log, and Jesus is the Fire! OK?
a) To give myself
To give myself, in fact, means putting the log into contact with the Fire, repeating this action, and trying to remain in contact with the Fire for as long as possible. So, as you can see, this is an act, and it depends on us. This will allow the Fire to burn the log more and more and transform it into fire! OK?
b) To give myself totally
To give myself totally now means reaching the state or stage in which the log is completely transformed into fire. So, as you can see, this is the result of a). It is the result of the repeated (daily) gift of myself. It is the result of a repeated act (a). OK?
In a), every day I give myself to God and renew the gift of myself, using my freedom. This daily gift does not transform me immediately, but it helps me take one step! This step is important! Remember the ball of wool. If Jesus holds one end of the wool, He will pull all of it towards Himself. I just need to place the end of the string in His hands each day! Renewing the gift of myself every day (an act I can perform) helps me keep the log in contact with the Fire. So, one day, the whole log will be transformed into Fire: in this case, the gift of myself will be total!! Even though the daily gift of myself to Him is also total, “total” here is different from “total” there! What I can give today is my whole self, but what He can transform is only a small part (one step). The gift is total on my part, but my growth takes place step by step!
So, I do not have to be disappointed if I give everything today, or on any particular day, yet do not find myself completely transformed! The new creature within me grows day after day! Not all at once!
As I also said, we need to remember that, while climbing the Divine Mountain (Jesus), we should not be disappointed if we have to climb only one step each day (“being faithful to the little”, as the Gospel says)! We need to remember that, by giving ourselves totally today, we climb one step, but, in a way, the whole mountain is contained in this small step! We must never underestimate the full importance of today’s step!
Maintaining contact between the Fire and the log maintains contact between Jesus and us, so He renews us every day and transforms us into Himself. Step by step.
4. How Can We Start This Journey? How Can We Reach the Goal: the Total Gift of Ourselves?
The main way to realise the daily gift of myself to Jesus (a gift that allows me to grow and be transformed in Him) is to renew, every day, my desire to put Him first. In fact, I need to use my freedom every day in order to choose Him. Remember that all Creation belongs to Him, heaven and earth, but there is one thing that does not belong to Him: your freedom of choice, your will, your desire! He will never intrude upon them; they are yours! In fact, nobody can touch them! You are their only owner, and God never touches them! But if you love Him, if you want to give yourself to Him, you need to use this treasure that belongs to you. He gave you this freedom and will never take it back. This is your treasure; it is yours! You need to use it, and use it abundantly, in order to grow! But every time you use it, you still possess it for the next time! So remember that, every day, you are a free person in the eyes of God and that, in order to love Him truly, you need to make use of this freedom. You are the paradise of God, just as the Bride is the Paradise of the Divine Spouse! But in this Paradise, there is a tree that God swore to Himself not to touch: your freedom! So remember the power of seduction God has placed within you: the use of your freedom to choose Him and put Him first!
In order to put Him first through an act (which is the good use of your freedom), you are invited to a) listen to Him and b) immerse yourself in Him every day! Listening is an act, and immersing yourself in Him is another kind of act! They depend on you! God always gives you His grace to perform them!
a) Listening to Him
Listening to Him is an act that I described when explaining Lectio Divina. In fact, in order to listen to Him, one needs to offer one’s whole being and be ready to listen to whatever He wants to say. We need to place our whole being under His light so that He can shed His light on a place in our soul that He wants to change! As you can see, Lectio Divina is the first and highest way to choose God and give ourselves to Him daily! An effective Lectio Divina is one in which His Word, received today, is put into practice today, with His grace!
b) Immersing ourselves in Him
This is the second-highest act of self-gift that we can realise: the Prayer of the Heart, or Contemplative Prayer! In fact, as I have taught you, in order to immerse ourselves in Jesus, our Divine Ocean of Love, the Divine Oven of Fire, we need to give ourselves to Mary, placing our whole selves and our entire lives in her hands, like a little child (“in order to enter the kingdom of God we need to become like children”; otherwise, we cannot enter! Mary is the mother of these children because She is the mother of each one of us, the mould of the Divine Jesus and of our new divine being!). Being immersed in God helps our roots to be transformed into the Fire of God. The log I spoke about earlier is, in fact, an entire tree. The visible part of the tree is transformed by the Fire of the Word of God through Lectio Divina! The deep roots of the tree (the heart), however, can only be transformed in God through this type of prayer, in which our whole being is immersed in God, especially our roots.
At Mass, we receive two types of “goods” or foods, and Lectio Divina and the Prayer of the Heart are simply an extension of these two types of food, so that we may become transformed in God!
Remember that a) opens the gate to b).
Remember, too, the beautiful definition of love given by Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus: to love is to give everything [to God] and to give ourselves [to Him]. So, if I say to God, “I love You” (the First Commandment: “you shall love God with all your heart, all your energy, all your intelligence…”), this implies that I am invited to give flesh to this love, to make it a reality!
Re Prayer of the Heart, see here.
Lectio Divina and Contemplative Prayer According to Carmelite Spirituality
5. Difficulties
Of course, on this journey, we may find it difficult to renew the gift of ourselves to God. We may also discover that it is not easy to listen to Jesus and do His will. Why? Because the old creature in us (the “old man”) is still alive! The log has not yet been completely transformed into the Fire! And the old creature in us does not like the Light of God! The “muscles” of our new being, too, are not yet accustomed to doing the will of God, so we may feel that walking with Jesus is difficult! To help us in this situation, it is important to remember that we must not look at the whole log and despair! We need to concentrate only on the act we have to perform today and be very happy that we have done it! This is the greatest grace God gives us every day! It can sometimes be tiring to look at the top of the mountain and see how far away it still seems! But this is not helpful! We need to concentrate on each step and take it correctly. When we look at the mountain, we need to feel the energy of God filling our being and encouraging us to continue climbing!
Note: There is a parallel here with the example of St. Thérèse. She desired martyrdom, recognising it as the supreme expression of love: to give one’s life for the Lord, to die out of love*. Yet, from the very beginning of her spiritual journey, she understood that such heroic love must begin here and now, through the daily martyrdom of small things, the little pinpricks of everyday life. Acts of love, here and now. It is by remaining faithful to the Lord in these small sufferings, sacrifices and challenges that we learn to love Him more fully and prepare ourselves to give everything for Him. “How earnestly and consolingly I repeated to myself, from the very beginning of my religious life, these other words of our Holy Father, St John of the Cross: ‘It is of the utmost importance that the soul should exercise itself greatly in Love, so that, being consumed rapidly, it may not linger long here below, but may swiftly come to see its God face to face.’” (St. Therese, Yellow Notebook: 27.7.5)
*On Christian Death, “death out of love” (St. John of the Cross and St. Therese)
We must always remember that this is a progressive journey and that God is very happy to see us take today’s step! One act a day makes Him happy (one new act each day, without losing the other acts we have already performed). We need to humbly accept that we cannot reach the top of the mountain in one day. We need to humbly accept this “burden”. We need to bear the “old creature” within us. In fact, the two creatures, the new and the old, are both within us, as if engaged in a battle! We are like a pregnant woman carrying twins in her womb. We need to be patient and accept that we must grow step by step! Jesus said that our new being grows like a tree! And a tree needs weeks, months and years to grow properly and become deeply rooted and to start to bear fruts! We must remember that we please God immensely when we concentrate on today’s step and take it!
The presence of the “old man” within us, still alive, with his heaviness, laziness and inconsistency, must not lead us to despair, but to patience! Our old heart is like an old, heavy stone, and God is removing it slowly! Patience! Courage, perseverance!
We need to see that Jesus is growing in us!
We need to look at what we have achieved through His grace and thank God for it.
We must not look back…
We must not look at the old man within us! He will die by himself! We do not need to concern ourselves with looking at him or fighting against him!
Humility: the Gospel reminds us that we need to come down (in fact, “climbing” is actually “digging”, a “coming down”), to make ourselves small, like a little child.
Mary, as I said, is the Mould of the new man within us. We need to give Her every burden and every worry, placing ourselves in Her arms. Even our desire to love Jesus and give ourselves totally to Him must be placed in Her hands, so that She can keep our desire in a safe place and help it grow and persevere! We can lose the graces we receive! Our heart leaks! But if we give Her everything, if we entrust our spiritual life and the graces we receive to Her, She can keep them safe! Her Heart keeps everything and never loses any grace received! She does this for us, too! In fact, we can very easily become the “owners” of our spiritual life and our growth. So, it is good to remember true divine humility and to give everything to the true Mother of the Humble, humble Mary! God looked upon Her humility as upon a divine valley; She is able to keep all the water of grace in Her Heart and allow it to bear fruit.
It is good to renew our resolve to give ourselves to Jesus through the hands of Mary. She keeps our promises safe! She immerses us in Him.
Note: Remember what Bl. Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus, OCD, once said: to give oneself to God through solemn perpetual vows is one thing. Yet, within just two minutes, we can begin to take ourselves back, wondering what responsibilities we have, what position we hold in the community, or how we compare with others. But to give ourselves to the Holy Spirit is something on an entirely different level, and it is far more demanding, because the Holy Spirit is constantly present to us. This gift is not simply an act made once and for all; it calls us to a continual surrender, renewed at every moment, in the presence of the One who dwells within us and never ceases to invite us to belong wholly to Him.
6. The Stages in the Realisation of the Gift of Ourselves
Before moving on to the next step in this explanation, I would like to remind you of the first point I mentioned! The framework for everything we are saying is this: the Love of Jesus for you is total, unique, exclusive and jealous (divine jealousy). This is always the starting point! He is looking for you! He gave Himself to you, totally, on the Cross! This is the essence of Baptism and the essence of our identity as Christians! This is the deepest meaning of the Cross. The Cross is the place where the Divine Spouse gave Himself totally to the Bride! Therefore, giving yourself totally to Him will mean a spiritual marriage with Him — on earth!
Spiritual Marriage is the realisation of the Divine Seed of Baptism! It is the full mutual gift of yourself and Jesus!
Now, let us look at this new point: the stages in the gift of ourselves to Jesus! In fact, as I said, it is a journey. There are many steps that mark our growth in Jesus! The more the log is taken up and transformed by the Fire, the more it passes through different stages or steps. We can identify at least seven steps:
1. In the beginning, we experience a divine attraction to Jesus. We are seduced by Him!
But we are very weak and inconsistent. We need to strengthen our inner being, our will in God; we need to be regular and persevere. We need to learn to make theological acts (Faith, Hope, Love) and not lean on what we perceive, sense, feels, or understand. Each time, we choose Jesus and put Him first. It is like a battle, a war… and perseverance will bring us our first victory.
2. After persevering in listening to God every day, remaining constant and practising this immersion in Jesus (Contemplative Prayer), we reach what we call the union of will! Our will is united to the will of God (not our whole being, but a central part of it) (See St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, Mansions Five). We take the first major step towards Peace! We experience it as a first great victory, like coming out of Egypt (the Exodus)! We become more strongly attached to Jesus, and our will becomes more firmly rooted in Him.
3. Then, after this step, we seem to make a new start, in order to reach the total purification of the soul (emotions, feelings, etc.) and of the spirit (the ego). The Love of Jesus now takes the gift of ourselves very seriously and carries out a thorough purification and transformation of our being into His!
4. After this radical step, we finally reach a much deeper peace, one that touches the very depths of our heart. This marks the beginning of what we call the spiritual “engagement” between Jesus and us! For the first time, we are able to say a “yes” with our whole being purified and ready to respond to His Love. This may seem strange, because by the time we reach this stage, we have already given ourselves to Him hundreds of times and said “yes” to Him on countless occasions! Yet something is now different: our whole being, including its deepest roots, can finally say “yes” in a pure and total way.
The Fiancée is now ready to be prepared by the Holy Spirit for the Marriage! Her spiritual dress is gradually adorned with many graces and precious stones, so to speak, until she is ready for the wedding. It is a joyful time of preparation, as the Holy Spirit adorns her and prepares her for this Divine Marriage.
5. Now comes the most delicate and beautiful moment, when the Son of God receives His Bride into His Room, where they exchange their “yes” with one another. This is the Secret of the King. Here, the total gift of herself is finally realised in its fullness. The log is completely transformed into Fire and fully participates in the Fire’s own operations. She is His, and He is hers. They belong wholly to one another. She belongs to Him, and He belongs to her, totally and truly. She can give God to God. The Secret of the King.
6. A new stage now begins, in which the Bride starts to bring children to the Divine Spouse. For it is not enough for her simply to be united to Him as one; she must also bear children. The log, now completely transformed into Fire, begins to send out divine sparks, and she starts to give God to many children. This, too, is a Secret of the King. A long period of service begins, filled with gifts that she offers to Him. Indeed, each child becomes a gift from her, now transformed into the Fire and moved by it, to Him. She gives Him great joy. This sixth stage can, in fact, be divided into many different stages, but discussing them is not our purpose today.
7. The moment of death is, in fact, one more act of love on her part, when the Holy Spirit takes the precious stone that is her soul and spirit and plunges it into the immense ocean of the Divinity. This is Christian death: a complete immersion in God, even fuller than that of spiritual marriage, although, fundamentally, there are no further stages beyond it. It is a fuller possession of God.
On Christian Death, “death out of love” (St. John of the Cross and St. Therese)
You can easily imagine a drawing of a log and a fire, showing at least five stages in the fire’s growth as it progressively transforms the log more and more into its own very nature.
7. Conclusion
To conclude, we need to remember that the main way to give ourselves totally to Jesus is to seek to meet Him every day, to listen to Him daily, and to immerse ourselves in Him each day. This is the food that nourishes the growth of our gift of ourselves to Him!
By renewing this gift daily and placing our whole lives in His hands, we take one step forward each day, and a greater part of our being is gradually given to Him and transformed into Him.
May Our Lady keep your generosity safe in Her hands and help you to persevere each day.
Jean Khoury
Question: How can I know that God wants this priest to be my Spiritual Guide starting from now? Are there any signs He can give? If yes, like what?
Answer: The real Spiritual guide and Father, and Spiritual Master, is the Holy Spirit. He speaks to you and want always to guide you and to speak to you. He likes to speak to you through human beings! I like to say always: God became flesh in order to talk to us through the flesh. Even if Jesus is on the right hand of the Father, He still likes to speak to us through the flesh! His flesh is Nature, His flesh is the Bible, his flesh can be any human being! He guides you, in order for you to grow. Don’t put yourself in the hands of a human being! Put yourself in the Hands of the Holy Spirit and He will guide you. When you listen to a man/woman don’t listen to the human part of him/her, listen to God, to your real Master, and pray to Him!
We don’t find the best Spiritual Director, but we find the right one for now! “For now” because we may need another priest after a while! Because very rarely can one priest lead you to achieve the whole journey! What I described above it not really known by the priests! They don’t learn it (it is not their fault) when they do theology! So be careful into whose hands you put yourself, and you need to put the priest under trial! God warns us saying: that you will become the image of your Spiritual Father! Because you receive from his spirit! And God says, you can hardly find one in one thousand! It is the Bible that says this!
This is why it is a bit difficult to answer to you!
You need to distinguish between confession (the sacrament of Reconciliation) and spiritual direction! It is not the same thing at all! Any priest can confess you and give you the forgiveness of your sins, but not any priest or monk can lead you to Union with God!
Pray, pray and pray!! This is the only way, and be attached only to God, even if you seek confirmation “through the flesh” as I say! Both are necessary: being attached totally to God (not to the man), and seeking confirmation “through the flesh”! iI your intention is right, you will always find the right person, the right advice along your way! And pray a lot for the priests!
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