[...] Every fiber of my own heart vibrates with this anguished protest. I too would join Wiesel, Mauriac, and all who have experienced such horrors [of the Holocaust] in cursing this face of the Infinite. And yet, there is something else in my heart that will also not go away – the certainty that this anger cannot be, and cannot be allowed to be, the last word about human life.
The last word must be the hope of the same heart that causes me still to protest, to rail against the infinite Mystery that permits such horrors to happen. [page 3]
To me, this is a great mystery. How is it that some people – people with great minds and great hearts (Wiesel and Mauriac) – could let their anger have the last word? It makes me wonder: "Albacete, how can you be so sure? You haven't seen anything so horrific as the events in the concentration camps..." But then I remember people like Max Kolbe, Edith Stein, Corrie Ten Boom, and I think, "Yes, Albacete would be among these who kept their certainty in mercy and hope, even in the worst circumstances known to humanity."
I don't know what makes the difference, but I want to be with Albacete (and Kolbe, Stein, and Ten Boom). I want to stake everything on mercy and hope.
What sort of education or training do I need in order to land among those with hope, rather than among those for whom anger becomes the last word?
