Question 10.158

10.158 Often, to reassure ourselves, we say that God writes straight with crooked lines. …

Considering my own journey, I can say that nothing was simple. My life was a genuine pilgrimage from one continent to another, from one country to another, from one seminary to another, from a simple parish to the Archdiocesan See of Conakry, in complex national political circumstances, then from my dear Guinea to the Eternal City. God willed this difficult path, the better to teach me that here below men are never definitively at home.

As Christ’s disciples, we are constantly on an exodus. Christians always remain nomads, in search of God, on a difficult but rewarding pilgrimage. It is important for them to remain attentive to God’s will.

Often, like Abraham, we do not know where God is leading us. Whereas we would like a stable, perfect universe, the human path is torturous, winding, and muddy, like the one that leads to my poor village of Ourous. However, we must never forget that man is never alone. Despite the most difficult appearances, God ultimately leads us toward perfection, sanctity, and the complete fulfillment of our own vocation. A life can seem to be a tragedy, but God knows the exact meaning of everything. Our Father is carrying out a plan for each of us. He simply asks man to be docile and attentive to the messages that he ceaselessly sends us. He may subject us to insults or overwhelming slander in order to teach us gentleness and humility.

Along this path, we must not forget God’s magnificent words to Abraham: “Walk before me, my child, and be blameless” (cf. Gen 17:1). There is a hope of God in man, and a hope of man in God.

I personally am the work of God’s hope and of the hope of his collaborators, those men who assisted me in my priestly formation and my human maturation. Through them, I often heard God say to me repeatedly: “Walk before me, my child, and be blameless.”

Do you suppose that the little child from the bush that I was could have imagined for one moment that he would leave one day for Rome to become a cardinal? At the major seminary in Nancy, when I met Cardinal Tisserant for the first time, I thought I would never ever again hear one of the pope’s colleagues speak. How could my grandmother Rose have imagined what sort of life I would have? God’s mysterious ways are not without humor. The apostles who surrounded Christ were the first ones to be surprised by the vagaries of God. The Gospels are full of the unexpected. …