Fiat-I Surrender to Your Will, Lord

We’re called to imitate Our Lady’s “fiat” in our own lives.  At the Annunciation, after Gabriel tells her about conceiving and bearing Our Lord, Mary says, “fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum-let it be done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). In proclaiming her fiat, Our Lady is saying that she’s accepting God’s will. Our sanctification requires us to do the same-to say and live out, “fiat-I surrender to Your will, Lord”. But do we?

Fiat-The Prayer of Abandonment

One of the objectives in my rule of life during this liturgical year has been deeper surrender to God’s will-going deeper in fiat-I surrender. It’s something that I look at in particular through my daily examen. Even with daily attention to surrender to God’s will, though, this can be a difficult thing to do. Within the last couple of months, my confessor suggested that I pray Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s Prayer of Abandonment. How’s that as a sign of progress needed?

When We Give Our Fiat, He Can Heal Us

God puts people in our path, in His Providence, to help us along in so many ways. A week or so after the assignment to pray Bl. De Foucauld’s prayer, I attended a Catholic conference with some amazing presenters, most of whom were priests. Imagine the “aha” moment I had when Fr. Martin Scott told us that, “Happiness is doing God’s will…let Him take over and surprise us.”

Two days later at the conference, his twin brother, Fr. Philip Scott, told us to get in touch with our wounds—the problems we can’t fix, “God knows we need them for His divine use…in our state of weakness, when we say ‘fiat,’ we give Him control. He’ll provide us with a tsunami of Divine joy to wipe out desolation, discouragement, agitation, and doubt.”

Being of a choleric temperament (or a high “D” for those accustomed to DiSC profiles), I often need to be smacked alongside the head with a 2 x 4 to get my attention. Well, over a period of a week, three holy priests wielded that 2 x 4 quite adeptly. They got my attention, all right.

The Fiats of a Venerable and of a Servant of God

That’s not all, though. Prior to the conference, I’d been blessed to acquire a copy of the out-of-print book, Prayers of Hope, Words of Courage by Ven. Francis Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận. In his reflection, What is a saint? he suggests,

A saint is a person like any other; he or she has not been released from the daily human combat between virtue and sin, life and death…The saint places all of his or her faith in God, even when faced with trials…The saints give themselves completely to the Lord Jesus, and the Lord gives himself completely to them.

The saints give themselves completely to the Lord. They lived, “fiat–I surrender.” The Venerable Cardinal had to do that while held captive for 13 years, nine of which he spent in solitary confinement. He knows whereof he speaks.

Consider as well Servant of God Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ. I learned of him through a directee who’d learned of him while talking on a flight with a priest who’d been at another conference we’d all attended. Fr. Ciszek spent 23 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps. His words are compelling:

The plain and simple truth is that [God’s] will is what he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people, and problems. The trick is to learn to see that—not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God’s grace, but every day (He Leadeth Me – Servant of God Father Walter Ciszek, SJ with Fr. Daniel L. Flaherty, SJ).

God’s will is what He actually sends us each day—places, people, and problems—the whole package. As Fr. Ciszek tells us, we have to learn to see this every day, in the routine occurrences of our lives.

Surrender or Not?

How can you tell you’ve not surrendered all to His will? After all, many of us pray, “fiat–I surrender.” We say that we are, or that we hope to go “all in” for the Lord. Yet, when the chips are down, we see just how much we have left to surrender. After the conference with the two Fathers Scott, my wife, and I contracted Covid. We treated it with the protocols that the Frontline Doctors recommend and praised be Jesus Christ, we’ve both recovered. But, during the time before the healing began, quite frankly, my prayers often weren’t, “Fiat, Lord!” Sometimes they were, “Lord, heal me, and I offer up this suffering”. Yet, many times they simply were, “Lord, heal me!” So much for total abandonment to Divine Providence at the moment.

On a less dramatic level, as Fr. Martin Scott points out, if we’re not happy with something, it means we’re probably not doing God’s will. Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen tells us pretty much the same thing:

How can you know you are living in God’s will? This is the sign: If you are troubled about anything, that means you are not completely abandoned to God’s will (Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us, Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen, OCD).

If we’re anxious about anything, we’re probably not allowing God to take ownership of every aspect of our life. If I let others’ behaviors aggravate me, I’m not surrendering it all to God. I’m not offering it up and letting God be God.

Surrender Through Detachment and Patience

So, how do we let God be God and live our “fiat-I surrender”? Clearly, prayer and fasting help in such matters. Directing our prayers to God to ask for the grace to grow in faith and hope, and in surrender to His will helps. He knows what we need; He wants us to ask Him for it. Praying for the grace to grow in the gift of wisdom also can help. Through that gift, we can better see people, things, and events from more of a supernatural than a natural perspective. It can help us see God, and the good, in all things. As well, praying for the gift of piety can yield an increase in filial confidence in the love and care of Our Father for us.

Fr. Stinissen suggests that praying for, and cultivating, detachment and patience will help in our surrender:

Those who live in detachment never decide against anything. They choose, not a thing, but God’s will…Those who are detached can wait; they have patience. God’s will reveals itself at the proper time, not before…The Spirit has plans, and when we have patience, he discloses them to us. There is perhaps no more effective way to die to oneself than by patience

We cholerics, in particular, but others as well should be praying for and practicing, patience. This transformation may take some time, but with God’s grace, all things are possible.

Fiat: God Loves Us Unconditionally

The process of surrender can be a lifelong journey. Never lose hope or become discouraged. God loves us unconditionally. He loves us as we are, and wants to transform us through His healing graces. We simply need to go to Him in our weakness and let Him help us. As Fr. Martin Scott says, “God trusts us much more than we trust ourselves. He gives us all we need for heaven although it may not seem to be what we desire.” True—it may not seem what we desire, but “Father knows best,” doesn’t He? Let Him show you just how much He loves you.

This simple truth, that the sole purpose of man’s life on earth is to do the will of God, contains in it riches and resources enough for a lifetime (Servant of God Fr. Walter Ciszek).