An African Bishop Writes

St. Cyprian (martyred in 258), bishop of Carthage, in North Africa, left behind many short treatises on Church matters that reveal much to us of Catholic life during those times.  Perhaps his best known work is his “Treatise on the Our Father”, one of the first to treat of this prayer.  The following excerpt reveals something of the depth of his wisdom:

“ ‘Your will be done on earth as in heaven.’  Not that God may not do want he wills, but that we ourselves do as he wills.  For, who can oppose what God wills to do?  But we pray and beseech that the will of God be done in us so that our spirit and acts may yield to him, that the work of his will be in us, because it is opposed by the devil in all things.  For no one is capable by his own power, but only when he is protected by the kindness and mercy of God.  The Lord, showing forth the weakness of man, which he bore, said: ‘Father, let this chalice pass from me if it may be done’ (Matthew 26, 59).  But giving an example to his disciples that they do not their own will, but that of God, he added: ‘Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.’  In another place he said: ‘I did not come down from heaven to do my own will, but that of the One who sent me’ (John 6, 52).  But if a son should obey so as to do the will of his father, how much more should the servant obey so as to do the will of his master?  In his [first] letter, John also exhorted and instructed men to do the will of God, saying: ‘Do not love the world, nor those things that are in the world.  If anyone should love the world, the love of God is not in him, because everything that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, worldly ambition.  This is not from the Father, but from the desires of the world: but the world shall pass from its desires.  He who does the will of God remains forever, as God also remains forever (1 John 2, 15-17).  We who wish to ‘remain forever’ must do the will of God, who remains forever.”