Abbey-Roads2

A prayer for those of us who are sinners and fall every day, perhaps at every step:

O my God, I am so intimately convinced that you watch over all those who hope in you, and that we can want for nothing while we expect all from you, that I am resolved to live without anxiety in the future, casting all my care on you. “In peace I will sleep and I will rest for you have wonderfully established me in hope.” Men may turn against me: sickness may take away my strength and the means of serving you; I may even lose your grace by sin, but I will never lose my hope. I will keep it even to the last moment of my life, and all the demons in hell shall try in vain to tear it from me. “In peace I will sleep and I will rest.”

Jesus, I trust in you!

Others may look for happiness from their wealth, or their talents and education; they may rely upon the innocence of their lives, the rigor of their of their penance, the number of their good works, the fervor of their prayers, the splendor of their liturgical celebrations, the beauty of their devotions: but for me. O Lord, my confidence shall be my confidence itself. For you have wonderfully established me in hope.

Jesus I trust in you!

This confidence has never deceived anyone. “No one has hoped in the Lord and been put to shame. I am sure that I shall be eternally happy, because I hope firmly to be so, and it is from you, O Lord, that I hope it. In you O Lord, have I hoped; I shall not be confounded for ever.

Jesus I trust in you!

I know that I am weak and changeable; I know the power of temptation against the most firmly based virtues: I have seen the stars of heaven and the pillars of the firmanent shaken and fall; yet not even this can make me fear. As long as I hope, I am safe from every evil, and I am always sure of hoping because I hope for this unchanging hope. For you, O Lord, have wonderfully established me in hope.

Jesus, I trust in you!

In fine, I am certain that I cannot hope too much in you; and that I cannot obtain less than I hope for from you. Thus I hope that you will uphold me in the greatest dangers, protect me in the most violent assaults, and make my weakness triumph over my most formidable enemies. I hope that you will love me always and that I also shall love you with unfailing love; and to carry my hope at once as far as it can go, I hope for you from yourself, my Creator, both in time and in eternity. Amen

Jesus, I trust in you!

(From a Sermon of St. Claude de la Columbiere)