I ASK SIMPLY TO BE USED

A wonderful, wise reminder, that there is meaning in all that happen in this life.

“Who are you?”

By Saint John Henry Newman († 1890)

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, God 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, though 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. 

O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, 

you who guide Joseph like a flock, 

O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, 

I give myself to you. 

I trust you wholly.

You are wiser than I

more loving to me

than I am to myself. 

Deign to fulfill 

your high purposes in me 

whatever they be—

work in and through me. 

I am born to serve you,

to be yours, 

to be your instrument. 

Let me be your blind instrument. 

I ask not to see. 

I ask not to know. 

I ask simply to be used.

Saint John Henry Newman

Today’s 2nd reading at mass is instructive:

“Be happy at all times; 
pray constantly; 
and for all things give thanks to God, 
because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus.
Never try to suppress the Holy Spirit...
think before you do anything  
hold on to what is good 
and avoid every form of evil.
May the God of peace 
make you perfect and holy; 
and may you all 
be kept safe and blameless, 
spirit, soul and body, 
for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
God has called you 
and he will not fail you.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24