How to begin the morning prevenient act?

The word "prevenient": anticipating the coming of the day

The word prevenient has nothing to do here with being obliging. It must be taken in its literal, Latin sense: prae-veniens, "that which comes before," that which prevenes by anticipating. Father Joseph Iannuzzi, the first theologian to devote a doctoral dissertation to Luisa, sums it up clearly: "the prevenient act literally means anticipating (pre-) the coming (-veniens) of the day"^[1]. The soul does not run after its days: it prevenes them, it takes the lead by placing them in the Will of God before they begin.

A point of vocabulary avoids much confusion. The original Italian expression is atto prevenente. Father Iannuzzi's 70 Questions translate it as prevenient act — the term kept for the title of this article; but the current French edition of the Book of Heaven (Lumen Luminis) renders the same passage as acte préalable ("previous" or "preliminary act")^[2]. Prevenient and previous therefore designate rigorously the same reality: the act made before the day in order to consecrate it entirely.

The distinction with the current act

The prevenient act has a brother that prolongs it: the current act, that is, each concrete action made during the day, in the present moment, in union with the Divine Will. Jesus presents both together, in the same message of May 27, 1922, because they are inseparable: "one cannot understand the current act separately from the prevenient act"^[3]. The prevenient act gives the morning impetus; the current act reawakens and relaunches it throughout the day, each time distraction has covered it over. This article treats the first; the second is developed in How to make a current act in the Divine Will?.

What the prevenient act is not

Before saying how to begin it, three misunderstandings must be cleared away.

It is not a magic formula. Reciting exactly the right words does not automatically produce holiness. Luisa's ecclesiastical censor and spiritual director, Saint Hannibal Maria di Francia, said it forcefully: "holiness does not consist in a formula"^[4] — the saints formed by the Divine Will must bear, to a heroic degree, all the virtues of the saints of old.

It is not a technique for obtaining spiritual experiences. The prevenient act is not an exercise in concentration nor a method of relaxation: it is an act of the will, a free consent.

It is not a substitute for ordinary Christian life. It presupposes the state of grace, the sacraments, obedience to the Church and fidelity to the duty of the day; it does not replace them, it crowns them. Living in the Divine Will never meant living alongside the Church, as explained in What is the difference between doing God's will and living in the Divine Will?.

Everything starts from a single text. On May 27, 1922, Luisa inwardly reproaches herself for letting slip so many acts that could be accomplished in the Will of Jesus. It is then that Jesus teaches her the practice of the prevenient act and the current act. The passage is the charter of all that follows:

"My daughter, there is in My Will the prevenient act and the present act. The prevenient act takes place when the soul, at the beginning of the day, fixes its will upon Mine, confirming that it wants to live and operate in My Will alone. By this act, it anticipates all its acts and deposits them in My Will. By this prevenient consent, the sun of My Will rises and My life is reproduced in all its acts, as in a single present act." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 14, May 27, 1922^[5]

Three ideas in this text govern the whole practice. First, the act is made "at the beginning of the day": it is a morning act, made at the first rising, not a vague feeling kept up all day long. Second, it consists in "fixing" one's will in God's: a firm, decided act, not a floating wish. Finally, by this act, "the sun of My Will rises": a luminous image that Jesus immediately develops.

For Jesus warns Luisa that this morning act can be "obscured" — by one's own will, self-esteem, negligence — like clouds before the sun. The present act, for its part, "has the power to disperse all the clouds" and to make other suns rise. Hence Jesus' conclusion: "Both acts are necessary: the prevenient act gives the impetus, disposes the heart and is the basis of the present act. The present act preserves and prolongs the prevenient act."^[6] Beginning the prevenient act is therefore not doing everything in the morning; it is lighting the sun that will be rekindled afterwards.

Anticipating and depositing all one's acts

The morning stake is to lose nothing. An ordinary day is made of thousands of tiny acts — getting up, working, speaking, eating, bearing an annoyance — which, made without intention, fall back into time and are forgotten. Yet Scripture asks precisely that everything be offered: "whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus"^[7]. By anticipating its acts from waking and depositing them in the Divine Will, the soul makes them flow into the one eternal act of God, "which, having neither beginning nor end, raises its acts to embrace all the acts of all creatures of the past, the present and the future"^[8]. The humblest gesture, thus prevened, is no longer lost: it enters into something infinite.

The link with the Our Father and the morning offering

The prevenient act is not a novelty foreign to the prayer of the Church. It is rather its interior fulfillment. The Church has always taught that the day be consecrated to God from its beginning: "The Christian begins his day, his prayers, and his activities with the Sign of the Cross… The baptized person dedicates the day to the glory of God"^[9]. The traditional morning offering — by which one hands over to God one's thoughts, words and actions of the day — follows this line; Father Iannuzzi explicitly identifies the prevenient act with the "morning offering" lived in the Divine Will^[10]. And at the heart of it all lies the very petition of the Our Father: "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"^[11]. The prevenient act is this petition taken seriously at the first hour of the day. This continuity is found again in The Reign of the Spirit.

Since holiness does not lie in a formula, there is no single obligatory way of making the prevenient act. But there is one that is tried and tested: Luisa's own. Father Iannuzzi describes it in three movements, from Luisa's own words^[12]. It is the best starting point for anyone beginning tomorrow morning.

1. Recognizing oneself as nothing before God

The first movement is concrete humility: recognizing that without God I am nothing — from dust He made us — and that God is the Creator of all that was, is and will be. Luisa expressed this truth in a very simple phrase, which one can make one's own at waking:

"I am nothing, God is everything, come Divine Will…" — Luisa Piccarreta, formula reported by Fr. Iannuzzi^[13]

This abasement is not discouragement; it is the empty space that the Will of God comes to fill. One fixes one's will in God well only after letting go of the pretension of being self-sufficient.

2. Inviting the Trinity to operate within oneself

The second movement invites the one eternal operation of the Trinity to absorb, elevate and divinize all the acts of the coming day. Luisa addressed to each divine Person a petition, in the faculties and even the body of the soul:

"Come, Eternal Father Creator, to move in my will and beat in my heart; come, Eternal Son Redeemer, to think in my intellect and flow in my blood; come, Eternal Holy Spirit Sanctifier, to remember in my memory and breathe in my lungs." — Luisa Piccarreta, prayer reported by Fr. Iannuzzi^[14]

This is the heart of the prevenient act: not "I am going to strive today," but "come, you, act in me." The day is no longer first mine to succeed at; it is his to accomplish in me.

3. Extending and multiplying one's acts throughout creation

The third movement asks Jesus to "extend" and "multiply" throughout the created universe all the thoughts, words and actions thus consecrated, the soul taking part "with ease" in their diffusion^[15]. This point rests on an explicit promise of Jesus to Luisa: "The acts done in My Will… I multiply them in each one, I extend them to all generations and to all times"^[16]. The morning act then ceases to be a private gesture: it becomes a good offered for all.

These three movements are not a ritual to be recited to the letter: they are a way, a path that each one can interiorize and say in his own words, provided the substance is there — humility, invitation of God, universal offering.

What Luisa calls fixing her will in the Will of God bears another name in the Book of Heaven: to fuse oneself, to be fused in the Divine Will. Father Iannuzzi says it plainly: "this 'fixing' of our will in the Divine Will is an act of 'fusion' which, as Jesus tells Luisa, is the 'most solemn act' we can make"^[17]. The morning prevenient act is therefore, in its nature, an act of fusion made at the first hour:

"My daughter, to fuse yourself in My Will is the most solemn, the greatest, the most important act of your whole life. […] Therefore, by fusing yourself in My Will, you set heaven and earth in motion." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 17, January 4, 1925^[18]

One understands better, then, why this act deserves to open the day: it is not a pious preliminary, but the greatest act a creature can make. The precise meaning of this "fusion" is developed in What does it mean to fuse oneself in the Divine Will?.

Beginning the prevenient act does not dispense one from keeping it. Jesus said it: the morning sun can be veiled by the clouds of distractions. The remedy is not to start the whole ceremony over, but to make, over the hours, present acts: simply bringing one's attention back to the Will of God by offering the present action, "even the most servile," as a link added to the chain of light formed at the rising of the day^[19]. This is also the time of the rounds, those journeys by which the soul joins the acts of God in Creation and Redemption to render them back to him in love. The prevenient act can encompass these rounds, without being reduced to them^[20]. These two practices have their own articles: the current act and the rounds.

The Church herself invites this vigilance of the present: "it is in the present that we encounter him, neither yesterday nor tomorrow, but today"^[21]. The prevenient act opens the day; the present act keeps it open.

One last thing, decisive, for beginning well. The prevenient act has meaning only within normal Catholic life. Saint Paul already gives the program: "present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which will be your spiritual worship"^[22] — and that is exactly what the soul does at waking. But this worship presupposes the state of grace: one does not fuse oneself in the Will of God while deliberately remaining in sin. It rests on the sacraments, above all the Eucharist and confession, which are the source of grace, not options. It remains subject to the Magisterium and the prudence of the Church, which has recognized the seriousness of Luisa's writings while framing their reading. And it takes flesh in the duty of state: the first sign that a prevenient act is sincere is a day better filled with love, patience and fidelity, not spiritual sensations. The fruits of the Spirit — "charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness" — remain the criterion.

Far from drawing away from ordinary life, the prevenient act transfigures it from within. It is the invitation that Mary and Jesus made their own before us: "let it be to me according to your word"^[23], "not my will, but thine"^[24]. Beginning the morning prevenient act is repeating these words at the first hour, and letting God make them the fabric of the whole day.

• What is the gift of living in the Divine Will? — the general doctrine of the gift.
• How to make a current act in the Divine Will? — prolonging the morning act during the day.
• What does it mean to fuse oneself in the Divine Will? — the nature of the act of fusion.
• What does it mean to make the rounds in the Divine Will? — the journeys through Creation and Redemption.
• What is the difference between doing God's will and living in the Divine Will? — the fundamental distinction.
• The Book of Heaven — the corpus containing the text of May 27, 1922.
• Luisa Piccarreta — life, writings, and ecclesial status.