FAQs

The Divine Will of God is the very Divine Life of God and is the supreme unity of the most Holy Trinity.  The three distinct and divine persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit have one inseparable will: God’s Divine Will. God’s very essence is Love and He has revealed that He Himself is an eternal exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, God created man to share in His Divine Life and in this blessed exchange of love.

We know from scripture and our catechism that God made Adam in His image and likeness, and it is in man’s soul, intellect and free human will that he is most like his Creator. Originally created by God in a perfect state of holiness and justice, Adam’s human will was completely and continuously abandoned to and one with God’s Divine Will. Thus, in the beginning, man fully partakes of the gift of living in the Divine Will, united in intimate friendship with God.

Our Catechism teaches that the first man was not only created good but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”. This grace of original holiness was “to share in. . .God’s divine life”. As long as he remained in this divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice”.  The “mastery” over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man’s mastery of himself. The first man was ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence that could enslave him to the sins of pride, sins of the flesh, and disordered desires for wealth. In this state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: God walked in friendship with them in paradise. This entire harmony of original justice was lost by the sin of our first parents. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 374-377, 379)

Jesus revealed to Luisa that man’s free human will was never meant to operate on its own but was meant to rely on the Divine Will as its primary source of life and sanctity. Separated from God’s Divine Will, man’s human will is weak and concupiscent – divided in himself and prone to evil. Adam sinned because he let his human will mistrust God’s love, leading to his disobedience and fall into temptation. Adam’s first sin lost for himself and for all humanity the original holiness and justice God had given him, leaving him unworthy to share in God’s Divine Life, and separating sinful mankind from our infinitely Holy God.

The Latin word Fiat means “Let there be, or let it be, or let it be done.” Jesus often speaks to Luisa of the Supreme Fiat, which is synonymous with the Supreme (Divine) Will of God. Thus, when she writes of ‘the Fiat’ she refers to the Divine Will.

God begins His greatest works with His Supreme Fiat. The Fiat of Creation opens with God’s “Fiat lux” or “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), and everything in the world, including humanity, are willed into existence. The Fiat of Redemption begins with the Immaculate Conception of Blessed Virgin Mary, whose response of trusting obedience at the Annunciation “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” or “let it be done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38), made the Divine Incarnation of Jesus possible. Jesus enters the redemptive suffering of His Passion with his obedient surrender to His Heavenly Father “non mea voluntas, sed Tua fiat” or “Not my will but Yours be done” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22: 42).  Jesus also prefigures The Fiat of Sanctification when He implored the coming of the Kingdom, in the ‘Our Father’, the only prayer He taught His disciples “Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in Coelo et in terra” or Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). We believe this period of great sanctity prophesied and promised has been ushered in with Jesus’ greatest of graces: the gift of Living in His Divine Will.

Fusion is our entry point to the sanctity of living in the Will: we unite our human will with Jesus’ in His most Holy Humanity, which is always one with His Divinity.  Jesus always did what was pleasing to His Eternal Father and lived in perfect union with Him. So fused with Jesus, we attain this same union with God’s Divine Will. Fusion is a profound union of two wills: our human will dissolved in God’s Divine Will, just as the drops of water are dissolved in the chalice wine during the Eucharistic celebration that Jesus instituted to fuse Himself to us.

To fuse, we set aside our human will, firmly resolve to live in the Divine Will, and surrender all our being, senses, interior and exterior actions to Jesus, letting Him reign in us. When we fuse with Jesus, He Himself descends into the depths of our human will: he molds it, strengthens it, purifies it and does all we do together with us.

Jesus tells Luisa that the soul fused with His Divine Will receives all His attributes of sanctity, beauty and love – changing weakness into fortitude, ignorance into wisdom, misery into richness etc.

The soul who lives in the Divine Will brings this sanctity to life through Acts fused with Jesus. Therefore, Acts are the very heartbeat of life in the Divine Will. Acts are all we do that are either voluntary (decisions we have control over like thinking and speaking) or involuntary (our body’s biological or physiological responses that we cannot control like our heartbeat and breath).

To do an Act in the Divine Will, the soul must freely choose to operate united with the most Holy Humanity of Christ (which is inseparable from His Divinity, and always one with God’s Divine Will), as if His Will and that of the soul are one. Jesus becomes the prime actor in all the soul does. All human acts fused with Jesus are called Acts in the Divine Will.

Jesus explains to Luisa that acts continuously done by a soul in the Divine Will allow him to grow in sanctity. He says that acts fused with Jesus are the greatest acts we can do in our lives.  As God’s Divine Life grows in the soul, he is transformed and restored to the original order and purpose God intended: perfect holiness and oneness with Himself, able to share in His blessed life.

Since our Acts in the Divine Will are the greatest we can do in our lives, Jesus gives us a way to do this every moment  by teaching Luisa about the Prevenient Act and the Actual Act. The Prevenient Act is when the soul, from the first rising of the day, fixes her will in Jesus’, and decides and confirms that she wants to live and operate only in His Divine Will. This expressed fervent intention is needed because we cannot possibly call on the Divine Will for each voluntary and involuntary act that we do throughout the day. However, the Actual Act of calling Jesus to operate in anything we are about to do is what helps keep us fused in the Divine Will throughout the day.

Rounds are prayers done in the Divine Will where the soul becomes attuned and attentive to all the facets of God’s Divine Love in his life, recognizes them, and returns this love to God in deep gratitude. Fused with Jesus, we order our intellect, memory and human will in His Divine Will so we are able to know, remember and acknowledge with thanksgiving the breadth and depth of God’s Divine Love in all He has done, is doing, and will do in the lives of all who are disposed to living in His Divine Will.

We start by entering the Divine Will through Fusion – uniting our human will to Jesus’ Divine Will. We begin by recognizing the perfect love of the Holy Trinity in whatever we are being led to reflect on like God’s omnipotent love in Creation, His merciful love in Redemption or His eternal love in Sanctification. We receive this love from the Triune God, thank Them and return this love to Them with our own “I love you; I adore you, I bless you, I thank you in the name of all and for all.”  Rounds of prayer in the Divine Will include acts of adoration of God, reparation for the sins of humanity, and thanksgiving for all that God wills in our lives.

Our rounds in the Divine Will allow us to fill the voids of love of man towards God. Across the centuries, God’s love has largely gone unrequited by fallen humanity. One who lives in the Divine Will recognizes the immense wonders of God’s Divine love and is able to return this love to Him on behalf of everyone.

Jesus tells Luisa that one who does God’s Will sees it as God’s Will alone, and not one’s own, and therefore lives with two wills. He feels burdened by his human will with its rebellious nature, disordered preferences, and sinful passions in conflict with the infinitely holy Supreme Will. This is why we “do not do the good we want to do, but the evil we do not want to do” (Romans 7:19-25). But to Live in God’s Will is to live with one single Will – that of God. And since it is a Will all holy and all pure that reigns without opposition in a soul, it can bring about “divine order” out of the person’s sinful tendencies, inclinations, vices etc. – hence, all is peaceful.

Jesus further explains to her that to do His Will is to live like a servant receiving orders from his master that he may or may not choose to obey and is thus paid accordingly. But to live in His Will is to live like a son who loves a father, possesses, and enjoys all the father owns, and no one can remove or unbind his rights of sonship between father and son. Nevertheless, “doing” and “living in” God’s Divine Will aren’t at odds with each other – but are progressive steps on the same path of holiness.

Much is already written about God’s Will, and about saintly holiness being possible only by completely doing God’s Will.  This new way to holiness Jesus proposes to Luisa is that one must go from “doing God’s Will” to “possessing the Divine Will as one’s own” – by living in it. This “living in the Divine Will of Jesus” is the greatest gift He wants to give to people, because He desires us to be fully actualized and restored to Himself. Here is what is new in what Jesus says to Luisa: the Divine Will works in the person and that person works in It in a Divine Way.  So, we aren’t just doing what God wants us to do, but we let His Will become our will and His life our life. This continuous exchange between the human and Divine will restores the divine likeness that was lost through sin. Through this gift of His will to the individual, God forms “His life” in the person, who now serves as “another humanity” for Him through this union of two wills, human and divine, united in one act of willing. That person becomes “another Jesus” not by nature, but by the gift of grace “because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

The Virgin Mary is the only creature willed by God, who lived entirely in God’s Divine Will.  She was immaculately conceived and set apart from all humanity by God, to be worthy of the Divine Incarnation of His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. She reveals to Luisa Piccarreta that from conception, She never knew Her human will, and allowed only God’s Divine Will to direct and dominate Her life.

Redemption happened because of Her lifelong surrender to God’s Will, as we see in the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), where the angel calls her “full of grace” and “the Lord is with you”.  Her response to God’s call to be the Mother of the Savior – “I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to His word” – shows Mary freely embracing God’s Will and plan for the salvation of mankind.  Her mission then and now is to lead us in the same obedience and faithfulness by Her example to Her Son Jesus, who always did the Will of The Father.

Jesus chose to reveal the truths of Living in the Divine Will to 20^th century mystic Luisa Piccarreta from Corato, Italy. Born on April 23, 1865 to poor but devoutly Catholic parents, she finishes only first grade, and lives a childhood of deep devotion to the Blessed Mother and intense love for Jesus in the Eucharist. Her encounters with Jesus begin at age 12, as He forms and purifies her with lessons on mortification in everything, especially in her will, so that Jesus’ Will and hers are one. At age 17 various apparitions of Jesus’ suffering in His Passion spark in her a lifelong desire to suffer with Him as a victim soul for the salvation of humanity, as He did.

At age 22, Luisa accepts the sacrifice Jesus asks of her, to repair for the sins of mankind: she must be bedridden for the rest of her life.  This suffering is her purification that prepares her for three separate mystical marriages with Christ, which unite Luisa perfectly to His Divine Will.  She will remain bedridden for 60 years, living only on the Eucharist for 20 years, never falling ill or developing bedsores. In her bedridden state, Jesus asks Luisa to be His Secretary of the Divine Will. So, from February 28, 1899 until December 8, 1938 Luisa sits upright in bed and obediently writes in her diary about her dialogues with Jesus and His Divine Will teachings, because He desires it to be known by all.

Luisa died in the odor of sanctity on March 4, 1947. Her seemingly miraculous death is well documented by doctors: her lifeless body showed no signs of rigor mortis in the four days that she was exposed to public veneration. Her head, arms, hands and fingers could be moved in every direction and there was no cadaveric odor around her. Our Lord seemingly showed to all that this soul was not a simple creature but a holy victim.

For over 38 years of her bedridden life, Jesus’ tells Luisa to write about an aspect of Holy Interior that has never been revealed: His Divine Will. Despite minimal education and aversion to writing, Luisa writes 10,000 pages across 36 volumes of her diary all Jesus teaches her about how Living in the Divine Will is the only way to restore humanity to original holiness and harmony with God. Using the circumstances of everyday life, Jesus eloquently shows Luisa how one can live in “God’s Divine Will” on earth, as He Himself did in His Most Holy Humanity – always doing the Will of His Father in Heaven. The diary itself must be seen as a long lesson with images, parables, examples, and reflections addressed to whoever, like Luisa, chooses to embrace this “holiness” in his or her life. Jesus himself tells Luisa what to call this compilation of Divine Will truths He has revealed to her: “The Kingdom of the Divine Will in the midst of Creatures. Book of Heaven. The call of the creature to the order, the place, and the purpose for which he was created by God.”

Since there were many miraculous aspects about Luisa, and Jesus’ messages as she recorded in her diary were too eloquent to come from someone as poorly educated as herself, the Church took an interest in Luisa’s work early on. Throughout the years she wrote, Luisa was assigned priest confessors to guide her, ensuring she was neither delusional nor being misled by the devil. St. Annibale Maria Di Francia was her priest confessor for 17 years, until he died on June 1, 1927. A passionate proponent of Luisa’s writings, he placed the Nihil Obstat on the first 18 volumes he supervised until his death, and the Archbishop Leo of Trani granted his Imprimatur soon after. On November 13, 1995, then Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, approved the release of the 34 manuscript copies of Luisa’s diary for private study, in aid of her canonization process.

On November 1948 Archbishop Addazi of Trani grants Luisa the title “Servant of God”. On February 1994 Archbishop Cassati opens the Cause of Beatification with the Vatican’s Congregation of Saints’ Causes and in March 2004 the Vatican officially opens the Cause for Luisa’s Beatification and Canonization. Then in 2015, on the occasion of her 150^th birthday, Vatican Publishing releases Luisa’s official biography – The Sun of My Will.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church recognizes that “…no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ” it also acknowledges “… Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith to gradually grasp its full significance over the centuries…” (CCC 68).  Thus, the Church makes room for private revelations that have not yet been recognized by the authority of the Church: “…it is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help the faithful live more fully by it in a certain period of history…” (CCC 67).

In this light, we believe that Jesus’ private revelations to Luisa Piccarreta about the gift of living in the Divine Will deepens our understanding of how to fulfill what Jesus implores in the Our Father, the only prayer he taught us – “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

The Little Children of the Divine Will (LCDW) Philippines-USA is a Catholic community committed to the promotion and diffusion of the spirituality of “living in the Divine Will”, asserted to be revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary to Catholic mystic Luisa Piccarreta. From its humble beginnings in in 1997 in the Philippines and USA, we are now officially recognized as a member of the Family of the Divine Will by the Associazone Luisa Piccarreta as originally founded and established in Corato.

We gather people from all walks of life in weekly prayer cenacles around the world – in person or online – to study Jesus’ private revelations in Luisa’s writings through the lens of Sunday liturgical readings, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Papal homilies and Angelus Reflections of the Holy Fathers. Guided by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, we help each other learn how to live in God’s Divine Wil, and we consecrate our lives to the fulfillment of the Lord’s prayer “…Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…”

All are invited to be part of our lifelong learning of how to be restored to the original order, place, and purpose for which we were created by God – and helping each other put that into practice. Having a basic understanding of the Catholic faith makes this learning journey easier to grasp and bring to life in one’s daily circumstances.

Those who desire to learn about living in the Divine Will only need to check our website of cenacle schedules to find a suitable slot.  A notification to the website administrator puts them in touch with the cenacle facilitator, who can then provide the Zoom meeting links to their preferred Zoom schedule. There are no other special qualifications to join a prayer cenacle, nor registration or membership fees required.