Hope

37. That which moves and overcomes God is earnest Hope ; in order to attain to the union of love, the soul must journey in hope of God alone ; for without it nothing will be obtained.

38. A living hope in God makes the soul so courageous and so earnest in the pursuit of the things of ever lasting life, that it looks on this world — so indeed it is — as dry, weak, valueless, and dead, in comparison with that it hopes for hereafter.

39. The soul in hope strips itself of all the trappings of this world, setting the heart upon nothing, hoping for nothing in it or of it, clad in the vesture of the hope of everlasting life.

40. Through a living hope in God the heart is so raised up above the world and delivered from all its snares, that not only it cannot come into contact with it, and be attached to it, but it cannot even regard it.

41. In all your trials have recourse at once to God with confidence, and you will be comforted, enlightened, and instructed.

42. The soul that retains the slightest desire for 13 earthly things, is more unseemly and impure in the way of God than if it were labouring under the heaviest and most impure temptations and darkness, provided the rational will did not consent to them ; such a soul may, with greater confidence, draw near to God in obedience to the divine will ; for our Lord hath said : Come unto Me all you who labour and are heavily burdened, and I will refresh you.

43. Have an earnest desire that God may give you all He knows you to be deficient in, for His greater honour and glory.

44. Have a continual trust in God, esteeming in your self and in your brethren that which He most esteems ; namely, spiritual graces.

45. The more God gives, the more He makes us desire ; until He leaves us empty that He may fill us with good things.

46. So pleased is God with the hope in which the soul is ever looking unto Him with eyes turned away from everything else, that it may be truly said of it that it obtains all that it hopes for.