FIAT: Not Just the Pope’s Car
Address presented at the Rector’s Conference
Very Reverend Alfredo I. Hernández, Ph.D.
President-Rector
Professor of Systematic Theology
St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary
September 9, 2020
Fiat cars have gotten a lot of coverage in Church media since Pope Francis became Bishop of Rome in 2013. I would like to suggest that the Fiat is of supreme importance to all who are seeking to respond to a vocation in the Church and, indeed, to all Christians. This is not only because we are called to live simply — that will be another conference — but because Fiat is one of the most important words in our tradition. Fiat, “let it be” or “let it be done,” appears thirty-some times in the Neo-Vulgate New Testament, but there are three instances on which I will focus in this Rector’s Conference: all three relate to prayer and all three translate a form of the same Greek word, γίνομαι. We could make this conference about γίνομαι but let us stick with the Latin and use Fiat.
The first Fiat, as you might have guessed, is Mary’s, in Luke 1:38: “fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum”[1] (“Let it be done to me according to your word”). This is the key moment of humanity’s yes to God and God’s yes to us. This is the moment when God depended on one of us to accomplish our salvation. This is the moment of the Word becoming flesh—as we reflected on so much last year.
For many of us, this passage has played some role in our vocation story. I can tell you that for me it was central. After graduate school at the University of Florida, I moved to Easton, Pennsylvania, and was working at Lafayette College as the Assistant Dean for Fraternities and Sororities. A woman I was dating knew I was thinking about the priesthood. She asked me how I was going to figure it out. Was I waiting for a bolt of lightning?
Indeed, I was. My prayer up to that point had been something like: “God, you don’t really want me to be a priest, do you?” After that conversation, I pulled out the rosary from my nightstand and tried to pray with an open heart. It was a Thursday, when the Joyful Mysteries used to be assigned. Just like that, as I started to reflect on the Annunciation, it hit me: I needed to say yes with Mary. It was clear as day. And I can tell you that I have been sure since that night that God made the invitation, and I had to respond, “Fiat”.
But there may be days when the invitation to respond “Fiat” with Mary doesn’t seem so clear. We might have moments of doubt. Let me suggest that, whether you are just beginning and sometimes struggling to recall exactly how you ended up at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary or if you have already said a definitive Fiat in ordination or religious profession, remembering how we got here and who invited us is important. Remembering this unites us with Mary, who teaches us to keep all these things in our heart [cf. Luke 2:19, 51]) and, with her, to respond Fiat not only once for all but also every day.
One more point on this first Fiat, Mary’s Fiat: I remember being at peace with my yes (even into the first couple years of seminary) but really having an attitude that basically said, “if this teenaged girl in Judea can say yes to God’s will, how can I not?” It was almost a matter of grinning and bearing it because I had to do God’s will. Not until III Theology did I realize what Mary did days after the Annunciation: arriving at the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, she sang the Magnificat. Her yes is not a somber yes. Rather, she’s singing praise for the great things that God has done for her. Do we?
For those who were here last year, think of Msgr. John Cippel’s homily for his 60th Jubilee Mass. He could have very easily thanked God for helping him to be faithful to his promises at ordination. Yet instead, his whole focus was on God’s faithfulness to him for 60 years. Remember that the first fiat in the Bible is in the creation story: “Fiat lux;” “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3). From the moment of creation, God is giving life to us and is faithful to us. Our yes can be and needs to be a joyful and firm yes (like Mary’s), not because we are so impressive in our faithfulness, but because we know God will always be faithful to us.
The second Fiat is much more somber. We hear slightly different versions in Matthew 26:42 (“Pater mi, si non potest hoc transire, nisi bibam illud, fiat voluntas tua;” “My Father, if it is not possible that this [cup] pass without my drinking it, your will be done“) and Luke 22:42 (“Pater, si vis, transfer calicem istum a me; verumtamen non mea voluntas sed tua fiat;” “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.”) For Jesus, to do his Father’s will was not to do what would make him happy in the short term but to trust enough to say fiat voluntas tua or non mea voluntas sed tua fiat. To be willing to want not our own will but the Father’s — that is asking a lot!
Think about the last few months. Is it possible that any one of us would not, if we could, will away COVID-19 and all of its devastation? Would we not rather ask the Father to take away “this chalice” and allow us to be with our families or our friends or spending ourselves in ministry rather than seemingly being separated from the world? I remember how many times my predecessor, now-Bishop David Toups, said last spring, “in obedience, peace.” Can we be obedient with Jesus? Can his Fiat be our Fiat?
Catholic theological anthropology says that we share fully in the life of Christ and that each Christian is “another Christ.” Furthermore, the priest himself acts “in the person of Christ”, in the Church’s liturgical life. [2] But we as Christians cannot be other Christs—and we as priests cannot credibly act in the person of Christ the Head of the Body—if we are unwilling to share the cross with him.
Of course, we need to remember that Jesus’s divine will was eternally united with the Father’s. But that doesn’t make his yes in Gethsemane and his yes at Calvary any easier. We are not Monotheletists; we don’t believe that Jesus’s human will does not really count. (OK, I just used an unnecessarily big word, but I don’t get to teach Christology this year; you’ll learn more about this heresy there.) That Jesus’ human will was perfectly obedient to his Father’s did not make that obedience easy or simple for him. In his perfect humanity, he is the model for us in accepting and responding to his Father’s will; his Fiat is the model for ours.
Remember this: Jesus Fiat was the fruit of his experience of the Father’s love for him. The union of wills between Father and Son is a union in love, the love of the Father and the Son, expressed in Jesus’s self-giving love for humanity (cf. John 10:17–18). When we unite our Fiat to Jesus’, trusting that what God asks us is the fruit of his infinite love for us, then loving his people becomes for us not a burden but a gift. This awareness will give so much depth to the moments when following the Father’s will is challenging, as we can place our mission in the context of God’s eternal plan, united to the redeeming action of Christ.
It was not easy for Jesus, and it can be very tough for us. But the Fiat of Gethsemane makes clear for us that our sharing in the cross of Christ is not something that we should treat like masochists who really like taking the discipline: “let me put a few more knots on the whip so it’ll hurt more.” Before the Father, we must be as honest as Jesus. We need to be honest enough to admit that in certain situations our first instinct may be to say that we would rather not: we would rather not go home alone to the rectory when we see husbands leaving the evening Mass with their wives and children, or we would rather not obey our bishop when he moves us from the parish where we are incredibly happy, or we would rather not pray the Liturgy of the Hours on days when we are tired or feel we have done more than enough for God.
Yet we know that, in some mysterious way, accepting this chalice with Jesus is going to allow us to be a part of his work of salvation. Even the image of the chalice speaks to us of the present moment. For us in this house and for Catholics around the world, the pandemic has impacted all of us in the way we currently relate to the Chalice at Mass. We priests are receiving by intinction to keep our brothers safe. The faithful—and even most deacons outside of this house—cannot receive the Precious Blood. To accept this draught of the Chalice of Christ with love and trust unites us with him in the Garden of Gethsemane.
There is one more Fiat I would like to mention—one we say at least three times a day whenever we attend Mass, Morning Prayer, and Evening Prayer: “Fiat voluntas tua;” “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10). Every day, the Our Father invites us to unite ourselves to Mary and Jesus by making their yeses our own: “Thy will be done.”
St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote this about the Our Father: “After this we add: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”; we pray not that God should do his will, but that we may carry out his will.[3] How could anyone prevent the Lord from doing what he wills? But in our prayer we ask that God’s will be done in us, because the devil throws up obstacles to prevent our mind and our conduct from obeying God in all things. So if his will is to be done in us we have need of his will, that is, his help and protection. No one can be strong by his own strength or secure save by God’s mercy and forgiveness.”[4]
In looking at evil in the world, whether in the form of naturally caused ills or sorrows that can easily be attributed to sin, we can fall into the temptation of seeing God’s will as the explanation for evil. At a moment when the question of theodicy (why God permits evil to occur) is very much present, we need to avoid easy answers. God never wills evil; rather, God’s will is the answer to evil. Allowing God’s will to work in us is the answer to evil.
In addition to the evil out there, evil is something that we also experience in here. We know that we each live out our Fiat imperfectly. Where we have failed in this yes (“deliver us from evil”), we can always open ourselves even more to God’s will expressed in mercy and above all in the mercy of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As Saint John Paul II loved to stress, as priests we can only offer God‘s mercy to others credibly if we have received and rejoice in his merciful love ourselves.
In preparing this first Rector’s Conference, I can tell you that I have gone back to themes that have been central to my vocation. In a particular way, though, this theme applies to all in formation and to all Christians. If we are to be ministers of Christ and bring his saving love to the world, then—like the Blessed Mother—we need to respond faithfully and joyfully to the invitation to be (as the statue of the pregnant Mary by the lake says) “also bearers of [her] Son.” If we are to be ministers of redemption to a world so much in need of Christ’s salvation, then Christ’s Fiat of Gethsemane must be ours. Together with him may we say, “Thy will be done!”