The Surrender Novena in the light of the book of Genesis
Journeying Through Genesis with the servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo
The icon of Mother of Divine Providence: that all God’s children are sustained and protected by his loving providence through the maternal mediation of Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our Mother.
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In translating Don Dolindo's commentary on Genesis, I discovered profound echoes of his divinely inspired Surrender Novena. As the epic stories unfolded through Creation and Fall, flood and exile, the patriarchs modeled a journey of radical trust in God's loving providence. Like Abraham yielding to the unknown, Joseph persevering through unjust suffering, at every turn Genesis issues one call across the millennia - "O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!" May this sublime refrain resound through Don Dolindo's potent words.
In the vast biblical figures of the book of Genesis, Don Dolindo Ruotolo finds a grand retelling of the spiritual journey. As we walk with the patriarchs through Creation, Fall, flood and covenant, Exodus and exile, Don Dolindo illuminates how this journey of salvation history mirrors our own individual pilgrimages of faith.
In the beginning, God’s first blessings bestow a universal human calling - “With the precept given to the first man, God traced for all the first path of our perfection: mortification and obedience. There is an immense treasure in the voluntary deprivation of small things and in holy obedience. The obedient soul is bound only to God, is simple, feels attracted only to good and lives in peace” (Gen 2, Commentary). As Adam and Eve are formed from dust and rib into God’s image, so we must form ourselves through sanctifying grace into temples of the Holy Spirit, bound not by earthly attachments but only to God through sacrificial love.
Yet in tragic disobedience, Adam and Eve bring sin’s bitter fruit, exchanging Love Eternal for lesser loves, rejecting holy obedience for poisonous autonomy. Now the mortification of suffering becomes necessary medicine, as God promises a Savior born of a Woman (Gen 3, Commentary). Don Dolindo suggested navigating the bitter remedies of life with composure by heeding God's guidance: “Let it suffice for us to know that the demands of divine glory and our own good govern the Providence of life, let it suffice for us to open our arms and rest as children on the paternal heart of God” (Gen 3, Commentary). Even in darkness, we must abandon ourselves utterly to Divine Care.
As Genesis unfolds through flood and patriarchal family dramas, Don Dolindo finds everywhere this central theme - God mysteriously working His higher will through hidden lines, fulfilling divine promises in unexpected ways that demand surrendered trust. “When the Lord makes us a promise...He can only guide us in ways that are completely different from ours...We must have the calmness to follow Him, and the constancy to wait for Him” (Gen 37, Commentary). Like Abraham led to unknown lands, Joseph sold by his brothers into slavery, we too must yield our narrow visions to God’s supreme Wisdom guiding all things.
Abandonment grows through prolonged trials as in purgatorial flames. So as Sodom and Gomorrah burn with lustful combustion, Don Dolindo begs a purer Fire set alight within: “Do not allow me to burn in the flame of concupiscence, but burn my loins and my heart with the fire of Your Holy Spirit, so that I may serve You with a chaste body and please You with a pure heart. Here I am, I abandon myself entirely to You” (Gen 19, Commentary). In the same way that Lot's wife was transformed into salt for turning her head backward, it's important that we don't dwell on the past with regret or longing. Instead, our vision should remain fixed on the future, with trust in the Holy Spirit's ability to purify us of any unhealthy attachments.
Genesis is a symphony of divine orchestration through human history’s cacophony. And frequently, God composes beauty through suffering’s discordant strains, as Don Dolindo knew firsthand. “God chooses the path of pain and humiliation for the souls that are dear to Him...In order for God to be with us, humility and obedience, simplicity and peace are necessary” (Gen 37 & 39, Commentary). Like Joseph emerging from Pharaoh’s prison to govern Egypt and feed multitudes during famine, we too must surrender self-importance and trustingly descend by loving obedience into the dark night, to emerge reborn as instruments of salvation.
As the Hebrews migrate from Canaan to Egypt and back again, Don Dolindo sees this as the soul’s proper trajectory in its Exodus through sin and exile back to the Promised Land of divine union. This return pilgrimage centers upon complete surrender to God’s loving Providence, abandoning limited human plans to partake in His infinite vision. “Our salvation is in Your hands, just turn Your gaze upon us, and we will gladly serve God” (Gen 47, Commentary). Like manna in the desert, the Eucharist feeds us sweet honey from Heaven, strengthening our surrender as adopted sons and daughters. We need only offer childlike trust to be led from the darkness of self-will into Christ’s luminous Kingdom of surrendered love. This is the simple, immense gift of Don Dolindo novena - giving God permission to transfigure our lives through absolute trust in Divine Providence. May this journey through Genesis inspire us, with Don Dolindo, to walk the surrender road back Home.
O Mary, Mother of Divine Providence, how often your immaculate heart echoed the surrender of your Fiat - "Be it done unto me according to Thy Word." In your mystical spousal union, you abandoned all to the Almighty in a supreme act of loving trust. Teach us, dear Mother, this same childlike surrender, this radical reliance beyond human comprehension. As you journeyed in faith's darkness to Bethlehem’s stable, to Egypt’s exile, to Calvary’s sorrow, you surrendered all cares to the Most High with unshakable confidence in His loving plan. Don Dolindo distilled such total abandonment into a simple, potent prayer - “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!” May these words resound in our hearts moment by moment, no matter the uncertainty. Fixating not on outcomes but on the Infinite Love guiding all things, may we proceed calmly as you did, O Mary, straight into sublime Light through night’s surrender. Amen.