...Confidence in God...

(from a Feb. 2, 1986 conference)

Good souls quite often accuse themselves of a lack of faith because they are uneasy or afraid about something that may happen or has happened.  They say that if only they trusted God they would not feel fear.  It certainly is true that some kinds of fear are not compatible with trust in God, and being afraid of some things shows that we do not trust God.  On the other hand, it is certain that Jesus experienced great fear in the Garden of Gethsemane, and although He suffered it for us, it does prove that not all fear is proof of lack of trust in God. . .

To be afraid of a bull on a footpath, to wake up at night with a sense of panic, to have a terror of closed spaces, and so on is not a sign of lack of trust in God.  But a lack of confidence in God’s love for you, a fear that He is going to punish you, an uneasiness about your past life and failings, a sense of being displeasing to God, and things like these, all show a lack of appreciation of God as your Father and as a Father who sent His Son to save you and paid a supreme price . . . to save you.

Confidence in God in the spiritual life is of the utmost importance, and without it we can hardly grow at all spiritually. . .

Among those spiritual souls who come to seek peace of soul from Spiritual Directors or Guides, I am sure that what holds many of them back from the great growth God invites them to have is their failure to grow in hope [and this] in two ways.  One failure is lack of confidence in the mercy of God to such an extent that they feel He is always somewhat displeased with them.  This makes them a bit awkward in His presence, a bit edgy, as it were.  The second failure is in not knowing how to use the very things He sends or permits to increase this virtue of hope.  In fact, the number of people, even holy ones, who regard the very things, which God allows or sends them to increase their hope, as being faults of their own and things to be got rid of amazes me. . .

Just as Jesus said that those who believe without seeing are better off than those who have seen Him (and the reason is that it takes more faith to believe in the dark, as it were), so we can say that a person who hopes in the mercy and goodness of God without any sense of personal worth or virtues or success in the spiritual life is better off than a person who comes into God’s presence in prayer or otherwise with a conviction that he has lived a rather good life and prays rather well and has done lots of good works.

Remember, I am speaking now to [those] who keep up mental prayer and do strive to get closer to God, so that what I am saying will not make them stop trying to improve, to practice self-denial, and so on.  I am speaking to those who do try and yet seem to be failures.  We cannot pray well, they say.  I feel so weak-willed, they say.  I have no fervor and enthusiasm, they say, and things like that—a sense of great spiritual weakness.  These are the sort of things which God sends or permits to devout souls not as punishments or signs that they are on the wrong path, but as poverty of spirit, which allows the virtue of hope to become really brilliant.  Hope and trust in the mercy of God do not need to be very intense if you feel that you are doing all right and are slightly better than the average Catholic! . . .

If every time we come to prayer or receive Communion, we remember various failings about ourselves and let that decrease our sense of peace with God or, even worse, feel uneasy with God, then we are not exercising the virtue of hope and not making the great use we are able to of our past failings and present weakness to be closer to God than ever. . .

The size of the spiritual gifts God gives us is not measured by our own goodness but by how much we hope.  Let us hope with all our heart to be possessed by and to possess God Who is Love.

Confidence is the theological virtue of hope wholly impregnated with love.  Abandonment to divine providence is confidence that is no longer expressed solely through separate acts but has created an attitude of soul.

It is the attitude of a little child to the Father Who loves him and has infinite mercy and infinite love and infinite power.

What peace of soul we have when we learn, like St. Paul, to glory in our infirmities.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Back to list

 

Website Design & Maintenance by Reach For It Media, Inc.