Hope and trust in God: joy

All of this will pass. In the meantime, let us fight in our interior life, in an ascetical struggle that fills us with joy and optimism, with peace and hope. And let us repeat the words that I used as an aspiration in the first years of our Work. It was a prayer, if you like, that was somewhat naïve, but it is the one we find in St John: the disciples tell the Master, nunc scimus quia scis omnia.²⁵

Now I continue to say that prayer: “God knows best.” My children, eratis enim aliquando tenebrae, nunc autem lux in Domino: ut filii lucis ambulate (Eph 5:8); we were once darkness, now we are light in the Lord: let us go forth as children of light.

When faced with obstacles, we will hear Jesus saying to Paul, and in Paul to us: sufficit tibi gratia mea, nam virtus in infirmitate perficitur (2 Cor 12:9); my grace is sufficient for you, for my power shines forth and achieves its end through your weaknesses.

To those who denigrate us, you can say confidently, humbly and with fortitude the last words of Tertullian’s Apologeticum: “Such is the contradiction between divine and human works, that when you condemn us, God absolves us.”²⁶