What Is Providence?

You often use the word "providence." What meaning does it have for you?

I am quite firmly convinced that God really sees us and that he leaves us freedom -- and nevertheless leads us. I can often see that things which at first seemed irksome, dangerous, unpleasant, somehow at some point come together. Suddenly one realizes that it was good thus, that this was the right way. For me this means in a very practical way that my life is not made up of chance occurrences but that someone foresees and also, so to speak, precedes me, whose thinking precedes mine and who prepares my life. I can refuse this, but I can also accept it, and then I realize that I am really guided by a providential light.

Now this does not mean that man is completely determined but rather that what is preordained calls forth precisely man's freedom. Just as we hear in the story of the talents. Five are given; and the one who receives them has a definite task, but he can do it in this way or that. At any rate, he has his mission, his particular gift. No one is superfluous, no one is in vain, everyone must try to recognize what his life's call is and how he can best live up to the call that is waiting for him.

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
in an interview with Pete Seewalt,
The Salt of the Earth