

"Abandonment," or "islam," or “surrender,” to God’s providential will is also the very essence of holiness. Kreeft, How To Be Holy, 31He builds his thesis on the truth that God is all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful, and upon St. Paul’s words in Romans 8:28 which say:
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”Most of us would readily agree that God is good and working all things together for our good when things are carrying on happily in our lives; that is, when they are going according to “our will.” During these times, we are invited to cultivate the virtues of faith, hope and love by aligning our will with God’s and growing in relationship with him. But it is when God allows us to be sanctified, or made holy, “against our will, through suffering” (Kreeft, 32), that we are frontally challenged to exercise the theological virtues in a more radical way. It is then that we must decide whether we really believe that God is good and whether we truly trust that what he is permitting in our lives is for our good. In these moments of permitted purification, we are beckoned to abandon ourselves with confidence to God’s providential will, allowing the fire of God’s love to burn away the dross of our own self-love and self-will — in a word, selfishness — which, Kreeft says is the main obstacle to holiness. When we assent to God in the midst of suffering, we begin to experience what the sage author calls “joyful, trusting self-surrender,” which requires saying: Not my will, but thy will be done. And that, my friends, that hard prayer of willing, intentional surrender in abandonment to a God we believe is good and loving — in the teeth of what is often a hard-fought battle through suffering — is what makes us holy. Simple, perhaps. Easy, no. But entirely possible with grace.
Copyright 2018 Judy Klein. This article was previously published at Aleteia and is reprinted here with kind permission.
About the Author

Judy Klein
Judy Landrieu Klein is an author, theologian and inspirational speaker whose first book, Miracle Man, chronicles her late husband Bernie's near death experience and miraculous deathbed conversion. Her new book, Mary's Way: The Power of Entrusting Your Child to God, is a CatholicMom.com imprint book published by Ave Maria Press. Judy shares her insights about the spiritual life at her blog, Holy Hope, at MemorareMinistries.com.
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