“God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for his purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his -- if, indeed, I fail, he can raise another, as he could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling.
“Therefore I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; he may prolong my life, he may shorten it; he knows what he is about; he may take away my friends, he may throw me among strangers, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me -- still he knows what he is about.”
--Venerable John Henry Newman
(Cardinal Newman, +1890, established the Oratory in Birmingham, England, and was a preacher of great eloquence.)
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