Thomas Griffin 4/17/25
Join Our Email List
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
The Empty Tomb Project is a non-profit organization – 501(c)(3) – please support our mission by making a tax-deductible donation. DONATE HERE
Read “Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine”
Let Us Begin: New Book on the Life and Power of St. Francis
When Pope St. John Paul II was a boy, he experienced profound tragedy and loss. By the time he was in his early 20s he had lost every immediate family member. His sister died before he was born, his mother died when he was very young, then his brother and then his father. These losses shaped his heart and his faith.
Particularly, the funeral of his brother was etched into his memory. He remembered, for the rest of his life, his father standing at the side of his brother’s coffin repeating under his breath – “your will be done…your will be done…”
John Paul learned this radical faith from his father at his brothers funeral. He would have repeated those words everytime he prayed the Rosary and offered the Sacrifice of the Mass. They began with the words that Jesus gave his disciples when they asked him to teach them how they should pray. He gave them the Our Father.
When he gave them this prayer, he would’ve known that the words, “your will be done” would be on his own lips in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he died. Perhaps, Christ used these words often throughout his public ministry and entire life on earth. They could have been the slogan that defined his life, his purpose and his every action.
On a human level, maybe he learned the importance of these words from Mary and Joseph. Gabriel is sent to Mary because she will be the Mother of God. In response to this divine task Mary simply says, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Essentially, her response is, “your will be done.” No matter the circumstances, she sought to follow what God asked of her.
Mary was found pregnant, but before she was living with Joseph. She knew what this meant for her life. She would be seen as an adulterer. Whether or not she told these details to Jesus or not is impossible to prove. Either way, Jesus would have grown up watching Mary’s devotion in their home. He would have known the difficult task given to her and her faith would have formed his humanity. He was being continuously carved to do the will of the Father – like she did.
Joseph receives an angel in a dream and is clearly afraid to take on this task. He does not respond in words, but in action: “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home” (Matthew 1:24). Whatever he was commanded to do, whatever the will of God was, he was going to follow it.
Joseph trusted for the rest of his life the validity of Mary’s words about the angel Gabriel. One dream set him on a course that would be unwaveringly set on serving and protecting the Son of God. As a young boy, learning the trade of Joseph, Jesus would have seen his dedication and faithfulness. The strength of Jesus was crafted by the courage of his step-father to accomplish the will of the Heavenly Father.
Now consider the details of the last night of Jesus’ life. He has a meal with his closest friends. During it he performs the action of a slave, washing their feet. He, once again, tells them that he will be killed and gives them the Eucharist while ordaining them as the first priests. Then he is betrayed by one of them before he makes his way to pray in the Mount of Olives, a usual prayer and lodging spot for Jesus and the disciples.
Christ warns them to stay alert, but they fall asleep. The deep and precise knowledge he has about the suffering he is about to endure causes him to literally sweat blood from his pores. Throughout it all, he is praying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
In the face of evil on Holy Thursday night and in the weight of sin on Good Friday, Jesus continued to echo the phrase that John Paul II’s father later spoke at his son’s funeral – ‘your will be done…your will be done…”
Today, many will focus on the example that Jesus left us in his washing of the feet and his willingness to suffer for others. These are necessary aspects of the Christian life and of living out holiness. However, the ability for him to do those actions stems from his unification with the Father. This was the result of him being the Son but we are offered the capacity to live united to the Father as well by consistently praying the words of the Our Father seriously.
In everything, let His will be done. See Him next to you in your own Garden of Gethsemane. See Him carrying your cross beside yours. Allow His will to raise you up inside and outside of Gethsemane.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
Join Our Email List
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Empty Tomb Project 