List of points

Our Lord has made you see your way clearly as a Christian in the middle of the world. Nevertheless, you tell me that you have often thought, enviously (though in the end you admitted it would be taking the easy way out) of the happiness of being a nobody, of working away, totally obscure, in the remotest corner… God and you!

—Now, apart from the idea of missionary work in Japan, the thought of just such a hidden and sacrificed life has come to your mind. But if, free from other holy natural obligations, you were to try to “hide away” in a religious institution, assuming that was not your vocation, you would not be happy. You would lack peace; because you would have done your own will, not God’s.

—Your “vocation”, in that case, would deserve another name: it would be a defection. It would not be the result of divine inspiration, but of sheer human reluctance to face the coming struggle. And that would never do!

“Blessed be God!” you said to yourself after having finished your sacramental Confession. And you thought: it is as if I had just been born again.

You then continued calmly: “Domine, quid me vis facere? — Lord, what would you have me do?”

—And you yourself came up with the reply: “With the help of your grace I will let nothing and no one come between me and the fulfilment of your most Holy Will: Serviam — I will serve you unconditionally!”

Our Lord is on the Cross saying, I am suffering so that men, who are my brothers, may be happy, not only in Heaven, but also — as far as possible — on earth, if they really embrace the most Holy Will of my heavenly Father.

You were still rather hesitant when you were telling me: “I am deeply aware of the occasions when the Lord is asking more of me.”

—All I could think of was to remind you how you used to assure me that the only thing you wanted was to identify yourself with him. What’s keeping you back?

Don’t be afraid to be demanding on yourself. Many souls do so in their hidden life, so that only Jesus may shine out.

I wish you and I would react as that person did who wanted to be very close to God, on the feast of the Holy Family. In those days it was celebrated within the octave of the Epiphany.

—“I have had a number of little crosses. There was one yesterday that hurt so much it made me weep. Today it made me think that my Father and Lord Saint Joseph, and my Mother, Holy Mary, won’t have left this child of theirs without its Christmas present. The present was the light that made me see my thanklessness to Jesus in my failing to correspond to his grace; and to see how mistaken I was to resist, by my boorish behaviour, the most Holy Will of God, who wants me as his instrument.”

Love for God invites us to shoulder the Cross squarely: to feel on our back the weight of the whole human race, and to fulfil, in the circumstances of our own situation in life and the job we have, the clear and at the same time loving designs of the Will of the Father.

It is all the same to you, you tell me, to be here or in China.

—Well then, try to be always where you are fulfilling the Holy Will of God.