Jan. 30, 2012 Monday: 4th Week in Ordinary (B)

"As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him. But he would not permit him."

The only true perfection is not that we should be leading this or that lifestyle but doing God's will; it is to lead the kind of life that God wants, where he wants, and to lead it as he would have done himself. When he leaves the choice to us then, yes, let us try to follow him as closely as possible, step by step, to share in his life just as his apostles did both during his life and after his death. Love presses us on to such imitation. If God leaves this choice, this freedom to us then it is precisely because he wants us to trim our sails to the breeze of pure love so that, blown on by it, we might «run after him in the odour of his fragrance» (Sg 1,4 LXX) in perfect imitation as Saint Peter and Saint Paul did...

And if one day God wishes to take us out of this beautiful and perfect way, whether for a while or for always, let us not be troubled or surprised. His designs are without fathoming. He can do for us, in the middle or at the end of the course, what he did for the Gerasene at the beginning. Let us obey him, let us do his will..., let us go wherever he wishes and lead the kind of life his will purposes for us. But let us everywhere draw close to him with all our might and, in every state, in every condition, let us be as he would have been and acted if his Father's will had placed him as it has placed us.

By Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), hermit and missionary in the Sahara

Meditations on the Gospels, no.194

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