Home of the Mother

Trust in God

A while back, I heard a priest tell a story about trust in God,
which made me think about how my trust is.

It happened in the Ukraine a few years ago, when persecution was still intensified. Today, thanks be to God, the Ukraine has changed somewhat and the Church is beginning to be revived. But in those years, the persecution was terrible. They were looking to destroy the faith, the spirit. Almost all the priests were expelled, deported to Siberia, to forced labor or simply assasinated. The story refers to precisely one of these priests deported to Siberia. He was brought there with many other people, all accused of one great crime: being Christian. After a long trip in the midst of many hardships, the first night they spent in Siberia the priest could not get to sleep. So much had happened, too many uncertainties, hardships, and fears, to be able to manage getting to sleep peacefully. Thus, he decided to pray. A little while later he began to hear a whisper, as if there was another person praying as well. He drew a bit closer, and sure enough, he discovered a man who was praying.

“ What are you doing?” he asked.

“ I am praying to God and the Blessed Virgin, asking them to help me to be able to be able to confess, because I know that I have very little time left to live. I will die soon and I want to go to confession before it happens. So, I am asking God that He might give me that opportunity.”

The man, in fact, had already spent some time deported in those Siberian lands, subjected to forced labor that had worn down his strength, and showed that the end was already approaching.

“ But do you think that you will be able to leave here to go to confession?” the priest asked, still withholding his identity.

And here is where the infinite trust this man had in God comes in. He responded with doubting for an instant. “I have so much confidence in God that I know that if I cannot leave here, He will somehow find a way to send me a priest that will help me. I only know that the Lord will hear my prayer. The means are up to Him.”

And that is exactly what the Lord did. The man had made a great act of faith and hope, in spite of suffering and he did not see his confidence as betrayed. How great was the happiness of this man! He had the absolute certainty that, even when the circumstances seemed impossible, the Lord would not abandon him and He would do whatever it took to have a priest there at the moment of death. Blessed are you who have believed!

For the priest, as well, it was an immense grace in the midst of so much suffering and pain. He felt himself as an instrument in the hands of God, seeing how God is never deaf to a prayer made in true confidence and love.