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I’m currently reading the book He Leadeth Me.

It has taught me several things:

1. The things that God calls us to do are not necessarily things that we—or the people around us—would consider beneficial, and they might even seem completely meaningless or useless in our eyes. For example, this priest was full of zeal, gave up everything, and spent years preparing to go to Russia as a missionary—only to be arrested immediately upon arrival, thrown into prison, and subjected to endless torment with no hope in sight. In human eyes, it looks like a total waste, utterly pointless; one might think, “If I’d known it would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have gone—I suffered for nothing.” Wouldn’t it have been better to just stay in Poland and continue serving the faithful? But in God’s eyes, it is not like that. Perhaps God precisely wanted to use such a roundabout and complicated path to purify the soul of someone who desired to follow Him.

2. Very often God does not take away our suffering; He may even seem to abandon us on purpose, allowing—or even adding more pain so that we suffer even more. At first glance this sounds cruel—isn’t God supposed to be love? Yet in reality these sufferings are truly for our good: they draw us closer to Christ and nearer to Heaven. Hasn’t God Himself endured every kind of agony for our sake? Even if we take a step back and consider the most excruciating process we are going through right now, it is still far less than one minute in Purgatory. Moreover, God never permits us to face a trial we cannot endure. The problem is that human perspective is extremely narrow; most of the time we simply cannot see the bigger picture—even priests who have lived many years of interior life may fail to see it. But thankfully, God knows how dull and limited we are, and He has not abandoned us.

3. God’s promise of help to us is not necessarily *external* help. Nothing should be taken for granted—including the sacraments. We never know when we might become homeless, have no food, no books, no Mass, no sacraments, not even a single rosary. When we still possess these things, of course we should make the best use of them: we should employ every grace and gift God has given us to help us advance toward Him. But when we lose all of these things, it does not mean we have lost the opportunity to become holy. On the contrary, it becomes an occasion to purify our souls and strengthen our faith. In this present age of widespread abandonment of the faith, this truth brings great consolation to us Catholics who are trying to remain faithful—because many of us already have very little access to Mass, or in some cases no access at all.