Your will, not mine, be done!
As we get to this holiest of all the weeks of the liturgical year, this statement of Our Lord should sound in our ears and hearts. It was his consistent obedience to the Father that led him to suffer and die on the cross. Though he was God, he did not cling to his glory but shed off his majesty just to become one like us. It was the Father’s will. All his life, he prayed, listened to and followed the will of the Father till the last breath. His prayer was: “If it is your will, let this cup pass me by; but not my will, but yours, be done!” In this, he modelled to us the way to pray and to become his disciples. Time and time again he reminded the disciples that “no disciple is greater than his master”. If they persecuted him, they would persecute his disciples as well. Our disposition should always be a ready willingness to let the Father’s will guide our thoughts, decisions and actions. As long as we submit ourselves to the will of the Father, we will experience a little of what our Lord experienced: rejection, betrayal, false accusation, mockery, exploitation, fake friendship, etc. In all this, we shall maintain our inner peace for we know that Our Father’s will is being carried out, and in that is our peace!
May this Holy Week be a truly spiritual experience for all of us, renewing and transforming us into real disciples of Jesus who, at every turn of our lives, would say: Your will, not mine, be done!
~Rev Cornelius Okeke