Thy Will be Done - Reflection

The other day, while going through some old notes, I came across a quote from Ernesto Cardenal—a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, liberation theologian, poet, and mystic. He said,

“When we subject our thoughts to the will of God, every small thing— every encounter on the street, every phone call, every letter—suddenly takes on meaning. Then we experience that everything shares a common foundation, and that all things are subject to one providence.”

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done.” This simple yet profound petition presumes that we live in a world where God's will is not yet fully realized. This is so evident when we look around. Violence and greed are creating chaos and causing suffering, particularly on the powerless and the marginalized. But it's not just the world around us that is broken; our inner world, too, can be in turmoil. Our hearts are often troubled by thoughts and emotions that go against God's will.

In contrast, Jesus consistently emphasized the importance of aligning ourselves with God's will. Through both His words and His actions, He revealed a deep, living unity with the Father. And it reached its fullest expression in His suffering and death on the cross. In His moment of greatest agony, despair, and fear, Jesus still prayed,

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

What does it mean for us to pray like Jesus? It surely doesn't mean surrendering in a passive-aggressive or hopeless way, as if we're giving up only because we've exhausted all other options. Nor does it mean shirking our responsibilities and leaving everything to God, as if human effort no longer matters. Rather, as we learn from Jesus, this prayer flows from a relationship of deep trust and love. This prayer draws us closer to God.

Jesus revealed that God’s will is, above all, to love us and to forgive us. Every other blessing flows from this central truth.

In that light, the prayer “Thy will be done” is not simply about requesting outcomes—it is about opening ourselves up to a relationship. It’s how God reminds us that we are never alone. Yes, God gives us good things and restores the brokenness, but more than that, God longs to restore and deepen the relationship with us so we can walk with God, talk with God, and dwell in God's presence—no matter what circumstances we face.
And when we truly grasp this—when we surrender our thoughts to the will of God—then, as  Ernesto Cardenal says, the way we see the world changes. Even more, the world itself begins to change through us.

From Fr. James