“When I was in seminary,” Father Aguirre said, after a moment, “I would beat myself up constantly. If anything bad happened to anyone I knew, I would ask why I hadn’t been there to stop it. If I’d paid attention, or been present, or even just prayed harder, surely I could have done something. Finally one of my teachers took me aside and said, ‘Manuel, you are not God. You aren’t omnipotent. Wanting to help is good, but this belief that you, personally, have so much power to affect the universe is starting to border on personal idolatry.’” He snorted. “He wasn’t wrong.”
