Lourdes Diary

One of my favorite authors is James Martin, SJ, and I recently picked up a copy of his Lourdes Diary: Seven Days at the Grotto of Massabieille. It is a short account of his travels to Lourdes with the Order of Malta as one of their guest priests. It's an incredibly easy read, but packed with great insights and statements that I find myself thinking about hours or days later.
On a subsequent trip to Lourdes, he and a fellow Jesuit travelled to Loyola to visit the birthplace of St. Ignatius. Things happened to turn out incredibly well for them on that trip: they arrived at the great basilica just in time for Mass, they ran into a Jesuit brother just in time for dinner at the Jesuit community, they returned home to Lourdes just in time for another dinner at their hotel with the malades. The following paragraph is one of my favorites from this little book:

"Sometimes in life, when it seems like nothing is going right, I think about St. Catherine of Siena's statement 'Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.' But during our trip to Loyola, I thought of St. Paul's observance that 'all things work together for good for those who love God.'"

I've made the comment to a few people in the past two weeks that "things are all going too well--something bad is going to have to happen!" Well, perhaps not. Perhaps I should have more faith and believe that things are going so well because I love God.