Needs of Life: A Path to God
Let not the needs of your life and those of others ever remove you from union with God; for after all, in those acts you are doing the will of God, and thus you will not forsake loving him. (OOCC, X, p. 52; STA, 228)
The needs and troubles of our life must neither be considered as burdensome nor be rejected as unwanted. In fact, they are paths that lead us to genuine union with God, because the situations of our needs and troubles provide us with concrete opportunities to recognize the will of God and do them. If we seek the will of God in the events of our needs and attempt to accomplish them wholeheartedly, each of our needs would take us to a fuller knowledge of God, deeper love of God, and a complete union with God. Such an attitude would never make us forsake God’s love for us that often comes to us in and through the events of our troubles and needs. On the contrary, if we shun the events of our troubles and run away from them, we miss the God-given opportunity to know God, to love him, and to be united with him. St. Vincent Pallotti acknowledged that the needs of his life were paths to God. Accepting this truth, he never faced the troubles of his life all by himself. He always reached out to God in every moment of his needs. He did not pray to be freed from the trouble, but instead he asked God to be with him in his difficulties. In this manner, St. Vincent Pallotti made use of each of his troubles and needs to come in touch with God. He used his hardships to recognize the love of God that was manifested through them. Finally he used them to be united with God.
Do I acknowledge that the needs and troubles of my life are paths to God? Do I recognize the love of God that is manifested through them? Do I seek God’s will through them? Do the needs of my life bring to me a fuller knowledge of God, a deeper love of God and a complete union with God?
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … No in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. (Rom. 8: 35, 37)