The word of Jesus is very clear for us: “I will send you the Holy Spirit that will reveal to you all these things”.

But, how many of us look at this phrase and we say: “But why so many trials, Jesus? Why do I pray all these days and my childen are not attending mass? It appears that I am always stopped and never anything new happens.”

Why does The Spirit of God let us be tested continually? The Spirit will reveal all these things. The Holy Spirit should have a motive because we are continally tested.

Why does God permit testing?

First: God created me and gave me body and soul. God wants that we choose the degree of happiness in eternal paradise, where we will always be happy. Each one of us in paradise will encounter full happiness. The happiness is born to of the one who in this earth I choose, two paths that are given to be able to obtain happiness.

What is your happiness? That which you want? Feeding yourself from Eucharistic bread, adoring Jesus and serving the others. What type of choice do you make? God needs your holiness. Your Country today needs your holiness. Your Country needs your decision to become a saint. What type of holiness and grace do you want to become? How do you want to live your days? One mass per year? Or to know that the bread from Heaven feeds you every day? Depending on your the degree of happiness. Strength and courage.

Living intensely the tests permit that we may walk much higher. I am growing. It does not matter what the people say, I look only to Heaven. My life is brief, but I want to arrive at holiness.

Second: Beyond choosing the degree of happiness. God wants that we grow in faith and in liberty. “I am a free person, I can choose good or bad, depending on me.” All depends on your liberty. Excercise your freedom. “I believe in the Lord Jesu, and I will not allow giving in to my troubles.”

Third: In the tests, I want only to love. God wants the we love until the end. We should love to the point of giving life. You perceive that is not accepted. Love yourself then.

And as it is that you are going to count on understanding the degree that you are? How do you know? Rest is simple, you know if you are living well in the tests, if in each instant of your day you praise the Lord. This is the key in order to be able to understand the degree that you are arrive to paradise. From the morning, when you get out of bed, do you praise the Lord? when you are on the metro, do you praise the Lord or murmur? If you praise little, it is the road to purgatory. Today is the moment of deciding always to praise the Lord.

Fr. Antonello Cadeddu
Alliance Member of the New Song (Canção Nova) Community

Translated from Portuguese