My Seeking God: The Motive
Yes, my God, I want you, because this is what you want. Otherwise I should never have the courage to invoke you. (OOCC, X, p. 131; STA, 188)
The attitudes of spiritual childhood and simplicity St. Vincent Pallotti practiced devotedly made him surrender his being and his having to God. There was nothing in his life which he had to hide from God. The totality of his life was completely transparent before God. His life was an open book and it was always available to God. Every action of St. Vincent was done in accordance with God’s plan for him. There was nothing in his thoughts, words, and deeds that did not correspond to the Divine Plan. Whatever he did was done because he perceived it as God’s will and plan for him in the situation he found himself. Even the sphere of his relationship with God was done according to God’s plan. For even in St. Vincent’s relationship with God, he did not want to do anything that would be different from God’s plan for him. He wished that his journey towards God was totally directed by the grace of God. All that he did was to cooperate with God’s grace and responded correspondingly to God’s revelations in his life. This attitude made him often say that he wanted to enter into a relationship with God because that was what God wanted of him. He acknowledged that if God did not want to enter into a relationship with St. Vincent, he would neither have the courage to invoke God nor enter into a relationship with him. Thus, we find him totally caught up with God. He experienced the totality of himself in God and God in himself.
Have I made a total surrender of myself to God, like St. Vincent? Am I totally transparent before God? Do I guide my life according to God’s plan for me? Do I respond to God’s revelations to me correspondingly? Is my spiritual life directed according to God’s plan for me?
When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts. (Jer. 15: 16)