Part one (8): Additional Points on Confidence

Xxi. Additional Points on Confidence

To strengthen you further in holy confidence, our most gentle and amiable Saviour gives Himself all the most sweet and loving names and qualities imaginable, to describe His relationship with you. He calls Himself your friend, your advocate, your physician, your shepherd, your brother, your father, your soul, your spirit and the bridegroom of your soul. He calls you His sheep, His brethren, His ch'ldren, His portion, His heritage, His soul, His heart. Your souls he regards as His cherished spouses.

At various places in Sacred Scripture He assures you that He exercises continual care and watchfulness over you (1 Peter 5, 7); He carries you, and will always carry you in His heart and in His bosom (Isa. 46, 3-4). Nor is He satisfied with saying once or twice that He bears you so tenderly; He repeats this beautiful thought as many as five times in a single passage. And elsewhere He says that even ifa mother were to forget the child she bore in her womb, He would never forget you, and that He has written you in His hands, that He might always have you before His eyes (Isa. 49, 15-17); whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye (Zach. 2, 8); you should have no care for the things that are necessary to you to sustain life and clothe yourself; He well knows that you need such things, and He takes care of them on your behalf (Matt. 6, 31-33); He has numbered every hair of your head (Matt. 10, 30), and of these, not one shall perish (Luke 21, 18): His Father loves you as He loves the Son Himself and the Son loves you as He is loved by His Father (John 15, g); He wants you to be where He is, that is, to be at rest with Him i n the bosom and heart of His Father (John 17, 24), to sit with Him upon His throne (Apoc. 3, 21), and in a word, He wants you to be one with Him, and, indeed, to be consummated in unity with Him and with the Father of Heaven (John 17, 21-23). If you have offended Him, He promises, provided you come back to Him with humility, repentance, confidence in His goodness, and the resolution to make a clean break with sin, that He will receive you, He will embrace you,

He will forget all your sins, and clothe you with the garment of His grace and His love, of which you had been stripped by your sins (Ezech. 18, 21; Luke 15, 22).

Who, after all this, will not have confidence? Who will not become entirely abandoned to the care and guidance of a brother, a father, a bridegroom, endowed with infinite wisdom to know what is most advantageous for you and to foresee everything that could possibly happen to you, and to select the most appropriate means to bring you to the goal of your supreme happiness? Not only this, but He is also filled with extreme goodness with which He wills all kinds Of good for you, together with immense power to turn aside any evil which might befall you, and to pour forth upon you the complete wealth of benefits He wills to grant you.

Lest you think His words and promises ineffectual, look for a moment at all He did and suffered for you in His Incarnation, His life, His Passion and His death, as well as the wOnderful graces He still brings to us daily in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. Consider how He came down from heaven to earth, out of love for you, how He humbled Himself to the extent of willing to become a little child, to be horn in a stable and embrace all the woes and needs of a human and mortal life. See how He devoted all His hours, all His thoughts, words and actions to you; how He delivered up His holy body to Pilate, to the executioners and to the Cross; how He laid down His life and shed His blood even to the last drop; how He gives you every day, in the Holy Eucharist, His body, His blood, His soul, His divinity, all His riches, all that He is, all that i s most dear and most precious to Him.

0 Thou who art goodness! 0 Love! 0 Most Great and Amiable Jesus! Let them trust in thee, who know Thy Name (Ps. 9, 11), which is none other than love and goodness, for Thou art all love, all goodness and all mercy. Yet I am not surprised that there should be so few who trust in Thee perfectly, since there are so few who study themselves to find out and observe the effects of Thy infinite goodness. 0 my Saviour, surely I am most worthless if I do not have confidence in Thy goodness, after Thou hast displayed so very many proofs of Thy love for me! If Thou hast done and suffered so much,

and if Thou hast given us such great things, what wouldst Thou not do yet again, what wouldst Thou not add now to, these gifts, if only I came to Thee with humility and confidence?

Cultivate a great desire to be firmly rooted in the sublime virtue of confidence. Do not fear, but be courageous in serving and loving Our Most Adorable and Amiable Jesus, with great perfection and holiness. Undertake courageously great tasks for His glory, in proportion to the power and grace He will give you for this end. Even though you can do nothing of yourself, you can do all things in Him and His help will never fail you, if you have confidence in His goodness.

Place your entire physical and spiritual welfare in His hands. Abandon to the paternal solicitude of His Divine Providence every care for your hea ' lth, reputation, property and business, for those near to you, fx)r your past sins, for your soul's progress in virtue and love of Him, for your life, death and especially for your salvation and eternity, in a word, all your cares. Rest in the assurance that, in His pure goodness, He will watch with particular tenderness over all your responsibilities and cares and dispose all things for the greatest good.

Do not rely on the power or influence of friends, on your own money, on your intellect, knowledge or strength, on your good desires and resolutions, or on human means, or on any created thing, but on God's mercy alone. You may, of course, use all these things and take advantage of every aid that you can marshal on your side to conquer vice, to practise virtue, to direct and conclude all the business that God has placed in your hands, and acquit yourself of the obligations of your state in life. But you must renounce all dependence or confidence you may have in these things, to rely upon Our Lord's goodness alone. You ought to take as much pains and work as hard for your own part, as if you expected nothing from God: nevertheless, you should no more rely upon your own resources and labor than if you had done nothing at all, but had looked to God's mercy alone for all things.

To this we are exhorted by the Holy Ghost, saying, by the mouth of David, the royal prophet: Revela Domino viam tuam, et spera in co, et ipse jaciet. "Commit thy way to the Lord, and trust in him, and he will do it" (Ps. 36,5). And in another place jacta super Dominum

curam tuam et ipse te enutriet. "Cast thy care upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee" (Ps. 54, 23). And, speaking through St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, He advises us to cast all our cares and worries upon God, since He watches over us: Omnem sollicitudinem vestram projicientes i n eum, quoniam ipsi cura est de vobis (I Peter 5, 7). This is what Our Lord said to St. Catherine of Sienna: "Daught e r , forget thyself and think of me, and I will ever think of thee." Accept this teaching as if addressed to you personally and to no one else. Let your chief care be to avoid everything that displeases Our Lord, trying to serve and love Him perfectly, and He will turn everything, even your faults, to your advantage.

Acquire the habit of making frequent acts of trust in God, but especially when you happen to be assailed by thoughts or feelings of fear and mistrust, either with regard to your past sins, or for any other reason. At such times lift up your heart at once to Jesus, and say to Him, with the Royal Prophet: Ad te, Domine, levavi animam meam: Deus meus in te confido, non erubescam. "To thee, 0 Lord, have I lifted up my soul. In thee, 0 my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed" (PS. 24, 1-2).

In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum. "In thee, 0 Lord, have I hoped, let me never me Confounded" (Ps. 30, 1). Deus meus sperabo in eum. "My God, in him will I trust" (Ps. 90, 2). Dominus tnihi adjutor, non timebo quid faciat rnihi homo. "The Lord is my helper: I will not fear what man can do unto me" (Ps. 117, 6). Dominus mihi adjutor, et ego despiciatn inimicos meos: "The Lord is my helper and I will look over my enemies" (PS. 117, 7). Bonum est confidere in Domino, quam confidere in homine. " I t is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man" (Ps. 117, 8). Et si ambulavero i n medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es: "For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me" (PS. 22, 4).

Or else join the prophet Isaias, saying: Ecce Deus salvator meus fiducialiter agam et non timebo. "Behold, God is my saviour, I will deal confidently and will not fear" (Isa. 12, 2). Or say with holy Job: Etiam si occiderit me, in ipso sperabo. "Although he should kill me,

I will trust in him" (Job 13, 15). Or, repeat the words of the poor man in the Gospel: Credo, Domine, adjuva incredulitatem meam. I do believe, Lord: help my unbelief" (Mark 9, 23).

At other times, say with the holy apostles: Domine, adauge nobis fidem: "Lord, increase our faith" (Luke 17, 5).

Or else speak to Him thus: "0 Good Jesus, it is in Thee alone that I have placed all my trust. 0 Thou my strength and only refuge, I give and abandon myself entirely to Thee; do with me whatever Thou dost please." "Oh my sweet love, 0 my dear hope, I place my whole being in Thy hands and sacrifice it to Thee, with my life, my soul and all that belongs to me, that Thou mayest dispose of them in time and in eternity howsoever it pleases Thee, for Thy glory!' In conclusion, confidence is a gift of God that follows in the wake of humility and love. Therefore, ask it of God, and He will give it to you. Strive to perform your every action in a spirit of humility for the pure love of God, and you will soon taste the sweetness and peace that accompany the virtue of confidence.

Xxii. Submission and Christian Obedience

Continual submission to the holy will of God is the most universal of all virtues and its practice should be most familiar to you, since at every moment there arise opportunities of renouncing your own will and submitting to the will of God. His will is always easy to recognize. God has willed that all things that are extremely necessary should also be very easy to obtain. The sun, for instance, and air and water, and the other elements are most necessary for man's natural life; so, also, these things are common and freely available to everyone.

In the same way, since God has placed you in this world only to do His holy will, and your

salvation depends upon this, it is, therefore, extremely necessary that you should easily know God's will i n all that must be done. So, He has made it easily recognizable, manifesting His holy will in five chief ways which are very certain and evident: i. by His commandments; 2. by His counsels; 3. by the laws, rules and obligations of our state i n life; 4. by the authority of those placed over you or directing You; 5. by events, since every hap

pening in an infallible sign that God so wills, either by absolute or by permissive will. So, if you would but open the eyes of faith even a little, you could easily, at all times and in every situation, recognize God's most holy will, and this knowledge would lead you to love Him and to submit yourself to Him.

But if you are to become really and truly submissive, you must store away in the deepest recesses of your souls these four truths taught us by faith:

1. Faith, which tells us there is but one God who created all things, also obliges us to believe that this great God orders and governs all things without exception, either by absolute or by permissive will ; and that there is nothing accomplished in the world that does not come under the ordering of His divine guidance, or pass through the hands of His absolute will, or His permission, which are like the two arms of His Providence, by which He controls all things: Tua, Pater, Providentia gubernat (WIS. 14, 3).

2. God neither wills nor permits anything except for His greater glory, and, in fact, He does draw forth greater glory from all things. Since God is the Creator and Governor of the world, He has made all things for Himself and is imbued with infinite zeal for His glory and is infinitely wise and powerful i n knowingly and effectively directing all things to that end. It is, therefore, very certain that He neither wills nor permits anything whatever to happen, in the world, that does not contribute to His greater glory and to the good of those who love God. If, then, we would only desire to love God and adore His holy will i n everything that happens, all things would work out for our greater profit. And this result depends upon us alone.

3. God's will, whether absolute or permissive, is infinitely holy, just, adorable and worthy of love, and deserves to he infinitely and equally adored, loved and glorified in all things just as they are.

4. Our Lord Jesus Christ, from the very first moment of His life, made it His whole purpose i n existing to execute, not His own, but His Father's will, according to the authentic testimony of St. Paul writing to the Hebrews: "When he (Jesus) cometh into the world, he saith (speaking to His Eternal Father): Behold I come; in the head of the book it is written of me: that I should do thy will, 0 God

(Heb. 10, 5-7); and according to what Christ afterwards said Himself: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me" (John 6, 38). In fact, He never followed 'His own will , although it was holy, divine and adorable. He renounced and, as it were, annihilated it, in order to follow His Father's will, saying incessantly to Him in all things, the words He uttered on the eve of His death, i n the Garden of Olives: 'Father, not my will, but thine be done" (Luke 22, 42).

If you ponder these truths, you will acquire considerable facility in submitting yourself in all things to God's most adorable will. If you reflect that God orders and disposes everything for His glory and your greater good, and that His disposition is most just and deserving of love, you will not ascribe things that happen to you to luck or chance, nor to the malice of devils or of men, but to God's ordaining, which you shall then love and tenderly embrace, knowing for certain that it is most holy and worthy to be loved, and that it neither orders nor permits anything except for your greater good and for the greater glory of God. You should love this glory above all things, since you ore only in the world to live and procure the glory of God.

If you give attentive consideration to the fact that Jesus Christ, our Head, abandoned so holy and divine a will as His, to follow the most rigorous and strict will of His Father in His regard-a will that demanded that He suffer so many extraordinary things and die so cruel and shameful a death for the salvation of His enemies, will you, after this, have any trouble in renouncing a will that is so depraved and corrupted by sin as yours, in order to set up in its place the reign of most holy and sweet and amiable will of God?

Submission and Christian obedience consist then in continuing Christ's most perfect obedience not only to the desires expressed directly by His Father, but also to those communicated to Him through His most holy Mother, through St. Joseph, through the angel who led Him into Egypt, through the Jews, Herod and Pilate. For He not only submitted to His Father, but became subject to all creatures. for His Father's glory and for love of you.

Xxiii. Practice of Submission and Christian Obedience

To put into practice the truths that have just been explained, it is necessary to adore in Jesus the divine submission which He exercised so perfectly. Frequently shatter at His feet all your own will , assuring Him that you desire none other but His desires and inclinations, praying Him to make His will reign perfectly in you.

Live in the continual resolution to suffer all kinds of tortures, even to die, rather than transgress the least of God's commandments, and be ever disposed to follow His counsels, according to the light and grace He gives you, in harmony with your state in life and under the guidance of your spiritual director.

Respect those who have authority over you and honor them as representatives of Christ on earth. Obey their will as if it were the will of Jesus Christ, provided their orders are not manifestly contrary to what is commanded or forbidden by God.

St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, goes much farther than this. He exhorts us to submit to every human being for the love of God: Subjecti estote omni humanae creaturae, propter Deum (I Peter 2, 1 3 ) . And St. Paul would have us regard one another as superiors: Superiores sibi invicem arbitrantes (Phil. 2 , 3). Following the divine teachings of these two great apostles, you ought to consider and honor persons of every kind as your superiors, and be ready to give up your own judgment and will in deference to others. I n your capacity as a Christian bound to live with the same sentiments and dispositions as Jesus Christ, you ought to make it -your professed aim in life, with Jesus Christ, never to follow your own will, and thus to obey the will of God in all its manifestations. In doubtful cases, that is, in cases where you cannot tell with certainty what is the will of God, you should obey the will of another person, no matter who he may be, looking upon all men as your superiors, and submitting to their will as far as possible in all that is not contrary to God and to the duties of your state in life. You should, however, always give preference to those who have fuller authority and more right over you.

Consider and observe all the laws, rules and obligations of your state, position or condition as unmistakable indications of what God

asks of you. In honor of the most exact obedience and perfect subjection rendered by Jesus, not only to the rulings of His Father, and to the hours and minutes prescribed and determined for the performance of all His actions, but even to human laws, place yourself in subjection to the rules and obligations of your condition, to the hours and minutes prescribed for the fulfilment of the duties and functions of your occupation, and also to human and civil laws. Do all this for the love of Him who, for love of you, showed you the way by first entering into such subjection Himself.

In every event that happens, whether by God's absolute or His permissive will, adore and bless and love both these wills, and declare to Him, in union with His Beloved Son and as far as possible, with the same spirit, and with the same love, submission and humility of His Most Obedient Son: Pater, non quod ego volo, sed quod tu; non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat; "Father, not what I will, but what thou wilt. Not my will , but thine be done" (Mark 14, 36; Luke 22, 42). Yea Pater, quia sic fuit placitum ante te, "Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight" (Matt. 11, 26).

When you become aware of some inclination or desire for any object, instantly cast it down at the feet of Jesus. If the attraction is powerful, continue to renounce it, and to dash it down and implore Jesus Himself to eliminate it, until you feel yourself disposed to want the very contrary to that desire, if He were to have you make the choice.

When some thought or fear enters your mind, concerning the loss of your health, your reputation, your property, your parents or your children or your friends, surrender your will to Jesus, adore and bless and love His will, just as if you had already sustained the lossor else anticipate, at this time, the moment when it will occur, and say: «0 Jesus, I annihilate all my will and inclinations at Thy feet. W ith my whole heart, I adore and praise Thy most holy and lovable will. In spite of all my repugnances and contrary feelings, I desire to love, bless and glorify Thee in everything it may please Thee to ordain for me and all that concerns me in time and in eternity. Live Jesus! Live the most holy will of my Jesus! May m y own will be annihilated and

destroyed forever, and may His reign be accomplished eternally on earth as it is in heaven!"