A Shocker
The conversation had the same quality we'd been having for years but this time with a shocking twist for an ending. (Though perhaps she's just more honest than most?)
Her goal is temporal happiness and to avoid suffering, and so there's always a wrestling between her and God.
"Look at the way he treats his friends- the Jews, the Irish, His Son!"
I had no answer. This didn't seem to be an opportune time to mention Pascal's line that "every conversion is a sentence" or quote the writer Paul Claudel: "No one can foretell where the demands of God, which the Scriptures tell us are harsher than Hell, will stop. Small wonder that your flesh shudders where so many of the greatest saints have trembled before you."
I'd certainly tried St. Paul, who said that God never gives us more than we can bear.
She asked me to pray for something concerning a mutual loved one.
"I'll pray that God's will be done."
"No! Don't pray for that!"
"What? You're kidding right."
"No, I never pray for that."
I should've asked her how she makes it through the Our Father. But I also realized anew the natural end of apologetics, that point at which only Love can take somebody. There's a gospel account of Our Lord saying that it's better to do something after saying you won't do it, than saying you will and not doing it. I hope and pray she's in the former category.
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