God created each of us according to his will, and this will is our prime origin. It is not just a remote and general will, but a particular will for each one of us. However it may seem when viewed from outside, no one exists solely by chance. Each one has been willed by God and has his own proper place in life. There is, for each one, a meaning and a role in the universe, and our lives will be all the more replete and happy, the more we realize this meaning, the more we incorporate this will into our lives and are one with it.
Hence there arises the next question: “What kind of will is this?” What concept does God see fulfilled in the human race? For one thing, we can say that he has his own design for each person; each one is something special, not merely one example of a product reproduced by the million. Each one is unique, never to be repeated, and willed by God precisely as he is. That is why we say that God calls each of us by name – not just by a concept, but by a name that only this one individual knows and that belongs solely to him. For each one there is a special call. And only if we live attentively in conversation and dialogue with God can we know why he needs us in such an apparently insignificant position and why we are, precisely in that position, so immeasurably important.
We need only recall that individuals who were apparently the most forgotten and insignificant int he world – a young woman in Nazareth, fishermen on the Lake of Genesaret – became immeasurably significant. It is not always so evident yet God wants each one of us, he needs each one of us, so that his world may become what he wants it to be.
From: Unpublished homily given at the 88th Deutschen Katholikentag, 7/5/1984
