Although the leaf is able to use its entire lifetime to submit to God's holy will, it is only because it cannot choose otherwise. Its response to its Creator, its union with God, the perfection that it can ever attain as a leaf have already been fixed from the beginning of creation.
God knew well what He was speaking about when He gave creation to mankind. We are rightfully superior over the other creatures not because of our own merits but because God has entrusted to us the intelligence and freedom of choice, to act on His behalf to govern His creation. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Jesus of Nazareth, "We are not ready-made children of God from the start, but we are meant to become so increasingly by growing more and more deeply in communion with Jesus." Our intellect and freedom of choice can be obstacles in our relationship with God but in these lies the greatest glory and honour any creature can give to God - our eventual arrival at the perfection of God's love in us, our choosing to love Him, to seek Him, to follow Him, our choice to assimilate His life into ours day after day, falling and rising again, struggling and succeeding - that among the many alternatives we have, God is chosen and placed above all. This transcends a mere performing of a duty, of doing what one has no choice but to do, and reaches the free expression of the depth of true love.
My inability to surrender to God's will should not and must not taint the beauty of God's gift of intelligence and freedom of choice, nor the supremacy that God has in His infinite wisdom bestowed upon Man.
12 February 2012, Sunday
9.55pm
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