It is time to close out the month of August. The Europeans view September as the beginning of the "social year" and here in the USA it marks the beginning of the Academic year and, with Labor Day this weekend, the end of the summer vacation season. Let us therefore conclude with these words from Pope Benedict XVI that we can ponder for the time that is before us. He indicates that it is in union with Jesus Christ that we are able to accomplish the work of being truly conformed to the will of God:
Man of himself is tempted to oppose God’s will, to seek to do his own will, to feel free only if he is autonomous; he sets his own autonomy against the heteronomy of obeying God’s will. This is the whole drama of humanity. But in truth, this autonomy is mistaken and entry into God’s will is not opposition to the self, it is not a form of slavery that violates my will but rather means entering into truth and love, into goodness. And Jesus draws our will–which opposes God’s will, which seeks autonomy–upwards, towards God’s will. This is the drama of our redemption, that Jesus should uplift our will, our total aversion to God’s will and our aversion to death and sin and unite it with the Father’s will: ‘Not my will but yours.’ In this transformation of ‘no’ into ‘yes,' in this insertion of the creatural will into the will of the Father, He transforms humanity and redeems us. And He invites us to be part of His movement: to emerge from our ‘no’ and to enter into the ‘yes’ of the Son. My will exists, but the will of the Father is crucial because it is truth and love (Benedict XVI, General Audience, April 20, 2011).
