What is the gift of living in the Divine Will?

The first thing to grasp — and the most exposed to misunderstanding — is that living in the Divine Will is not a heroic virtue the soul would finally merit by dint of effort. It is a gift in the technical sense of spiritual theology: a received, gratuitous reality that God alone can communicate.

The definition of Luisa Piccarreta and Fr. Iannuzzi

Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi, whose doctoral thesis defended at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 2012 is the reference on the subject, gives a compact definition.^[5] For Luisa, he writes, the Divine Will denotes above all “the uncreated gift of God communicating to the human soul his divine nature in a substantial, continuous, effective and eternal manner, thereby admitting it to participate in the ad intra operation of the Trinity.”^[6] The clearest formula is found in the 70 Questions:

“The gift of living in the Divine Will is not a virtue, but a gift. And as a gift, it consists in God’s absorption of the human will, and in the communication to it of his own ‘eternal mode’ of operation which has neither beginning nor end.” — Fr. Joseph L. Iannuzzi, 70 Questions on the Divine Will, question 61^[7]

This “eternal mode” is the key. The human will, left to itself, acts in time: its acts begin, last, and end. The gift raises this will so that it shares in the very way God acts — without beginning or end, touching everything in a single act.

The “absorption” of the will, without annihilation of freedom

The word “absorption” might cause alarm: would the creature be dissolved, its freedom abolished? Iannuzzi firmly sets this misunderstanding aside. Absorption implies “no annihilation of the free human will”; it means “the elevation and sublimation by God of finite human action,” rendering it “capable of participating in and cooperating with God’s eternal operation, without any violation of free human will.”^[8] Because human nature cannot raise itself to God’s eternal acting, it is God who accomplishes this elevation “through the humanity of his Son.”^[9]

The right image is therefore not a drop lost in the ocean, but a son whom his father admits to reigning with him: the personal will remains, free and active, yet made one with God’s. It is a dominion, not an annihilation — a point the foundational article develops at length.^[10]

Why a gift and not a fruit of the virtues

The gift does not “flow from the perfection of the virtues, but from a pure favor of God,” Iannuzzi explains: it “perpetuates the soul’s continuous exercise in the Divine Will — something the virtues cannot obtain.”^[11] Virtues are acquired through the repetition of good works; mystical gifts, for their part, are “freely bestowed” by God.

“Living in the Divine Will is not a virtue, but a gift God grants when he wills and to whom he wills — his gifts are not the result of human achievement; they are not the result of the virtues alone.” — Fr. Joseph L. Iannuzzi, 70 Questions, question 61^[12]

This doctrine is strictly traditional. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are “more excellent than the virtues,” moral and intellectual, because they “assist the virtues” and “accomplish what the virtues cannot” — while remaining below the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity), which regulate them.^[13] And Saint Teresa of Avila, describing the graces of prayer, recalls that “the Lord gives when he wills and as he wills and to whom he wills, and, since the gifts are his own, this is an injustice to no one.”^[14] The gift of living in the Divine Will belongs to this great tradition: it is gratuitous, yet it calls for real cooperation.

Every Christian knows he must do God’s will: that is the very object of Gospel holiness. Why then speak of something else? Because, in Luisa’s writings, doing and living in do not denote the same state of the soul.

The servant, the friend, the son and heir

Mystical tradition knows several ways of relating to God’s will: one may do it by submission, like a servant; one may abandon oneself to it by trust, like a friend; one may finally live in it by possession, like a son and heir. Luisa’s spirituality names this third state the gift of living in the Divine Will. The words she reports are precise:

“Living in My Will means reigning in it and with it, whereas doing My Will means being submitted to My commands. The first state means possessing; the second means receiving dispositions and carrying out commandments. Living in My Will means making My Will one’s own, as one’s own property, and administering it as one sees fit. […] The distance between the two is as great as that from heaven to earth, as great as that from a son to a servant, and from a king to his subject.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume XVII, September 18, 1924^[15]

Living with a single will

Doing God’s will means “living with two wills”: even the most advanced saint still feels “the weight of his own will,” of “his rebellious human nature, his passions and inclinations.”^[16] It is the experience Saint Paul sums up in a cry:

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” — Saint Paul, Letter to the Romans 7:24^[17]

Living in the Divine Will, on the contrary, means “living with a single will”: since God’s will “is all holy, all pure and all peaceful,” and “a single will reigns” in the soul, “no contrast exists.”^[18] It is, Luisa says, “the life that most closely resembles that of the blessed in heaven.”^[19] The difference between doing and living in the Divine Will is treated in its own right in a separate article; let us retain here that it governs the whole understanding of the gift.

An objection at once comes to the theologian’s mind: if this gift confers such a share in God’s life, does it not claim to surpass baptism, or even to relegate it? The doctrine’s answer is exactly the reverse: the gift springs from baptismal grace and always assumes it.

What sanctifying grace already gives

At baptism, the soul receives sanctifying grace, which makes it a “partaker of the divine nature,”^[20] an adopted child of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit, with the infused theological virtues.^[21] The Fathers summed up this design in a word: “The Son of God became man to make us God.”^[22] The gift of living in the Divine Will does not compete with this grace; it is, according to Iannuzzi, its development. Sanctifying grace “produces a permanent condition” in the soul and must not be confused with momentary actual grace.^[23]

What the gift adds: an eternal mode of participation

What the gift adds is therefore not another essence, but another degree. The Guide to the Book of Heaven puts it with decisive precision:

“Although living in the divine Will must not be regarded as a mode of union with God that is new in essence — for it remains anchored in the creature’s union with the human nature of Christ, made possible only by grace — it may be regarded as new in degree, insofar as it opens, from the soul’s inner source of sanctifying grace, an eternal mode of participation in God’s work.” — A Guide to the Book of Heaven, in the light of the teaching of the Catholic Church^[24]

By grace and by nature: Christ, Mary, the redeemed

To situate this gift, Luisa uses a pair of words drawn from classical theology: by nature and by grace. Christ possesses the Divine Will by nature, because he is God; every creature possessing it receives it by grace. The clearest sentence concerns the Immaculate Virgin and Adam before the fall:

“My humanity possessed by nature the Divine Will that Adam and the Holy Queen possessed by grace.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume XXIX, June 30, 1931^[25]

The gift therefore does not make man a god; it renders him a partaker, by grace, of what Christ is by nature. That is why it “springs from the gift of sanctifying grace,” as the Guide writes, citing in support this word of Jesus about his Mother: “my Queen Mother possessed the Sun of my Will by grace, and I possessed It by nature.”^[26] Baptismal life is not surpassed: it is brought to full flower.

If baptism already makes us adopted sons, what more does the gift add? Doctrine answers with a gradation of filiation: there are several ways of being a “son,” and the gift opens the highest.

Slavery, adoption, possession

Iannuzzi distinguishes three regimes of filiation in salvation history. Under the Old Testament, man receives a filiation of slavery to the law; at baptism, a filiation of adoption in Jesus Christ; with the gift of living in the Divine Will, a filiation of possession.^[27] The last, he writes, enables the soul “to concur in all that God does, and to share the rights to all his benefits.”^[28] This language is Pauline: “so you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir, through God.”^[29]

Sharing in the “ad intra” operation of the Trinity

The filiation of possession is not a generous metaphor: it denotes a real sharing in God’s acting, down to its interiority. Iannuzzi reports these words:

“To participate not only in all the works of our ad extra operation, but to pass from there to our ad intra operation. […] There are no longer veils or secrets between us and this soul; there is no longer any ‘ours’ and ‘yours,’ for all is in common. And what we are by nature — perfect, holy — the soul becomes by grace.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, as reported in Fr. Iannuzzi’s thesis^[30]

The “complete act” and the infinite value of acts

Every finite act that “enters” the Divine Will receives, Luisa says, a measureless value:

“My Will has the power to render infinite all that enters into it, to raise and transform the creature’s acts into eternal acts. All that enters into my Will becomes eternal, infinite and immense, and loses all that has a beginning, all that is finite and small.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, as reported in Fr. Iannuzzi’s thesis^[31]

This is what Iannuzzi calls the complete act: without the gift, “the soul cannot form a complete act,” for “the soul’s complete act is God’s own complete act.”^[32] Here we grasp a nuance often overlooked: a single act of charity suffices for salvation, but it does not suffice to possess Life in the Divine Will, which is a continuous state.^[33]

Why would God wish to grant such a gift in our time? The answer, in Luisa’s writings, is an answer from sacred history: it is a matter of bringing man back to the state in which God first created him.

What Adam possessed before the fall

Before sin, according to this doctrine, Adam lived in God’s will: he received from it a kingship over creation, a perfect harmony of his powers, the capacity to render God full glory. By refusing the divine will, he interrupted this “Kingdom” within himself and left his mission “in suspense.”^[34] The gift of living in the Divine Will “restores in the redeemed the gift Adam possessed before the fall,” and God confers on these acts “the seal of the Supreme Holy Trinity.”^[35]

“My daughter, in willing to restore the Kingdom of my Divine Will, I am constrained to reveal the state of innocent Adam. […] I wish to repeat in you what I did in him and, by the power of my Will, I wish to raise you to the primordial state of man’s creation.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, as reported in Fr. Iannuzzi’s thesis^[36]

The three Fiats: Creation, Redemption, Sanctification

This restoration belongs to a threefold design, which Luisa calls the three Fiats. The first creates, the second redeems, the third sanctifies; and the third completes in man the work of the other two:

“My daughter, these three Fiats are the Creator Fiat, the Redemptive Fiat, and the Sanctifying Fiat. […] The third Fiat will give man so much grace that it will restore him to his original state. And only then, when I see man as I created him, will my work be complete.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume XII, February 22, 1921^[37]

Tradition appropriates these three Fiats to the three Persons: Creation to the Father, Redemption to the Son, the “Fiat voluntas tua” to the Holy Spirit — and they are “inseparable, each constituting the life of the other.”^[38] The gift of living in the Divine Will is thus the fulfillment of the Our Father’s petition: “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”^[39]

If the gift is free, the soul is not passive: it disposes itself to receive it. Far from encouraging lazy waiting, Luisa’s doctrine describes a precise path.

The state of grace, first condition

The first condition is the state of grace. Iannuzzi reasons by analogy with the sacrament of Confirmation: just as the Church asks one to be in a state of grace to receive the gifts of the Spirit, so must the soul be to live in the Divine Will.^[40] Without sanctifying grace, the gift can neither come nor abide; “stability in the virtues keeps the soul from wavering and maintains it in the state of grace, without which the soul cannot keep the gift.”^[41]

The simple, firm, and resolute act of the will

This gift does not first ask for feats, but for a decision of the will. “The creative power of the Divine Will immediately enters the soul as soon as it yields its own interests to God’s by a simple but firm act of the will,” writes Iannuzzi; “as soon as the soul decides to do and to live in God’s Will, he absorbs it.”^[42] God then at once begins to “purify” the soul, to “break” its disordered attachments, to “pulverize” its vices.^[43]

What “receiving immediately” does not mean

This immediacy must be rightly understood. Receiving the gift “immediately” does not mean obtaining an “instantaneous holiness” dispensing from the ascetical stages of purgation, illumination, and unification.^[44] Entry into the Life of the Divine Will begins with the firm act of the will, but its fullness is reached through the “complete act,” at the term of a growth.^[45] Iannuzzi speaks of a passage from intermittent participation — receiving the Divine Will “on loan” — to continuous participation, or possession, “through the growth of ardent desire, knowledge, and the virtues.”^[46]

The four-step disposition

Concretely, the soul cooperates “through a four-step disposition”: by resigning itself to God’s will, by desiring to do it in all things, by making his will its daily bread, and finally by immersing itself in it.^[47] “But if the soul does not take the first step, Iannuzzi warns, it remains empty of God.”^[48] The virtues do not manufacture the gift, but they prepare for it: “the soul disposes itself to receive this gift through the exercise of its powers, particularly the will.”^[49]

The sacraments and the Eucharist as means

Far from opposing the gift to sacramental life, Luisa makes the latter the ordinary path toward “possession.” In the Fiat of Sanctification, Iannuzzi writes, “God procures for humanity the Divine Will as a Sacrament which, like a new baptism, confers on the soul the fullness of grace”; and “the Sacraments are a means of bringing the soul to the possession of the Divine Will.”^[50] Conversely, “evil acts prevent the Divine Will from forming its continuous operation in the soul.”^[51]

Receiving the gift is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of a life. This life has its own gestures, which Luisa’s spirituality has specified and which dedicated articles detail.

The prevenient act and the current acts

In the morning, the soul unites itself to the Divine Will through a prevenient act: it offers the whole day in advance — its thoughts, words, and steps — so that they may flow “in” God’s will. Then, throughout the day, it makes current acts: it lets God’s will act in each of its acts, however small. These two practices are the concrete breathing of the gift; they are set out step by step in the articles devoted to the morning prevenient act and to current acts.

The rounds (giri) in creation

The most characteristic gesture is that of the rounds — in Italian giri — by which the soul mystically traverses all creation to render God the love and glory creatures owe him:

“When this immense void presents itself to my mind, I fuse myself in the Supreme Will like a little child and I begin my round. […] I traverse the stars and every glimmer of light to impress my ‘I love You’ and ‘Glory to my Creator’; in the song of the birds, in the beating of their wings, I impress my ‘I love You’ and ‘Glory to my Creator.’ […] Now that I have re-established, between you our Creator and all creatures, the bonds of love that the human will had broken, make your Will descend upon the earth.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, as reported in Fr. Iannuzzi’s thesis^[52]

These rounds are not bookkeeping: they are “qualitative, not quantitative.” Because God’s eternal act “embraces all creation at every instant, the soul has no need to enumerate the acts of all creatures in a linear and chronological way.”^[53]

The gift is no precedent-less novelty: it was first lived in fullness, then offered to all through well-identified mediations.

Mary Immaculate, who possesses the Will by grace

The first creature to live fully in the Divine Will is the Virgin Mary. Preserved from original sin from her conception, she possessed “the Sun” of the Divine Will by grace, where Christ possesses it by nature.^[54] Iannuzzi presents her as the mediatrix through whom, “more than any other creature,” the divine acts and the gift itself are communicated to the Church.^[55] Mary’s place in this Kingdom is treated in its own right in a dedicated article.

Luisa, the first conceived in sin

Mary was immaculate; her example might therefore seem out of reach. This is where, in this doctrine, the mission of Luisa Piccarreta enters: to be the first creature conceived in sin to receive and transmit the gift, so that all may desire it.

“Had I willed you to be conceived without original Sin as my heavenly Mother, so that the life of my Will might reign in you, no one would have thought of letting It reign in him.” — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume XIX, June 6, 1926^[56]

According to the chronology of her writings, Luisa receives this gift at her “spiritual marriage in heaven” of September 7, 1889, after a spiritual marriage on earth on October 16, 1888, then becomes “centered” in the Divine Will on November 16, 1900.^[57]

A mediation for the whole Church

The purpose of this mission is not individual but ecclesial: through Mary and Luisa, the gift is destined for “all those conceived in sin.”^[58] This is the universal dimension of the Divine Will — life in the Fiat lived no longer by a single soul alone, but offered to all humanity — developed by the article on the Reign of the Spirit.

Because the subject is lofty, it calls for safeguards. Three confusions must be set aside; the foundational article treats them in detail, and they are briefly recalled here.

It is not quietism

Quietism abolishes effort, the virtues, and asceticism in the name of pure passive abandonment. The gift of living in the Divine Will is the reverse: it assumes the state of grace, conversion, the growth of the virtues, and a firm act of the will.^[59] The human will is not put to sleep; it is raised and made more active, never annulled.^[60]

It is no exemption from conversion or the sacraments

The gift replaces neither penance, nor the Eucharist, nor obedience to the Church. On the contrary, the sacraments are “a means of bringing the soul to the possession of the Divine Will,” and sin remains the obstacle preventing the gift from operating continuously.^[61] Living in the Divine Will means living the Church’s sacramental life more intensely, not less.

It is no superiority of the person

Finally, the greatness of the gift does not mean the superiority of the person receiving it. The gift is free: it bespeaks God’s largesse, not any merit of the creature. The holiness it opens is, in the words reported by Luisa, “the crown and completion of all other holinesses”^[62] — not because it lowers the saints, but because it brings to its term the design begun in Adam and accomplished in Christ.

Go further with Via Divina — This article touches on a central theme of the free Via Divina formation on life in the Divine Will. To go deeper, discover the formation: open the Via Divina formation.

• The Divine Will — the foundational article: the doing / abandoning / living-in distinction, practices, objections, and ecclesial recognition.
• Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947) — the life and mission of the one to whom this gift was revealed.
• The new and Divine holiness — life in the Divine Will lived individually.
• The Reign of the Spirit — the same life lived universally by the Church.
• The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will — the first to live the gift, by grace.
• What is the difference between doing God’s will and living in the Divine Will?
• What does it mean to fuse oneself in the Divine Will?
• What does making the rounds in the Divine Will mean?
• How to begin the morning prevenient act?
• How to make a current act in the Divine Will?