God’s Marvelous Plan for the Human Person
My God, through your infinite love you have deigned to create me in your image and likeness. You have granted me the gift of free will so that I might perfect myself insofar as I am a living image of you… because you wish to make me similar to you in your glory and essence. (OOCC, X, p. 749; STA, 570)
St. Vincent Pallotti was always conscious of the marvelous plan of God for him. He was fully aware that the totality of his life and all that he undertook to accomplish were part and parcel of God’s plan. Hence, he never sought himself and his own petty interests. Therefore, in attempting to do anything, he always discerned if what he planned fitted into the plan of God for him. For he knew that God created him in his own image and likeness, gave him the gift of free will and made him similar to God in glory and essence. God bestowed all these gifts on him not because he wanted these gifts to be used to accomplish his own selfish plans, but the plan of the one whose image he bore. In order to achieve the goal of actualizing God’s plan, St. Vincent made sincere efforts to perfect himself so as to remain as perfect an image of God as humanly possible. By doing this he wanted to become a living image of God both in his being and in his actions, thereby manifesting the glory of God in and through his life while accomplishing the plan God had set for him.
Do I believe in the fact that God has a personal plan for me? Do I seek my selfish interests in my apostolic endeavors? Do I discern if the activity I am embarking upon fits into the plan of God before I actually execute it? Do I take the trouble to make myself a living image of God?
I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost. (I Tim 1:16)