Prayer of Hope and Trust

On his blog (http://rome-ingcatholics.blogspot.com/) last Saturday (August 19), Terry Nelson posted a really beautiful prayer of Saint Claude LaColombière. I'm re-posting it here because it seemed to me that it was such a direct answer to my first blog posting here, particularly a line from the last paragraph, "I hope that you will love me always and that I also shall love you with unfailing love." Praise God for His servants in heaven and on earth (that includes you, Terry) that by them He provides so many helps for us!

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!