Wednesday, Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Dear N,

I am continuing to read Norman Vincent Peale. He tells the story of travelling salesman who made very few sales. Then one day another salesman gave him a three-sentence prayer that transformed his life. Just before he confronted a customer he repeated it:

“I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will always take the night turn of the road. I believe God will always make a way where these is no way.”

It seemed to do the trick. He made a sale 85 per cent of the time.

At Mass we heard of a very different life: that of St. Paul Miki and his companions, martyred in Japan in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Perhaps the prayer is as useful to travelling salesman in the US as martyrs in Japan or even us.