PART SECOND.
INTERIOR LIFE.
IX.
HOPE.
Casting all your solicitude upon Him for He hath care of you. (St. Petr., Ep. I., c. V., v. 7.)
Let Thy mercy descend upon us according to the trust we have placed in Thee. (Cant. Saint Ambrose.)
1. “Blessed is the man who hopes in the Lord,” says the Holy Spirit. The weakness of our souls is often attributable to lukewarmness in regard to the Christian virtue of hope.
2. Hold fast to this great truth: he who hopes for nothing will obtain nothing; he who hopes for little will obtain little; he who hopes for all things will obtain all things.
3. The mercy of God is infinitely greater than all the sins of the world. We should not, then, confine ourselves to a consideration of our own wretchedness, but rather turn our thoughts to the contemplation of this divine attribute of mercy.
4. “What do you fear?” says Saint Thomas of Villanova: “this Judge whose condemnation you dread is the same Jesus Christ who died upon the Cross in order not to condemn you.”
5. Sorrow, not fear, is the sentiment our sins should awaken in us. When Saint Peter said to his divine Master: “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man,” what did our Saviour reply? “Noli timere,—fear not.”[8] Saint Augustine remarks that in the Holy Scriptures we always find hope and love preferred to fear.
6. Our miseries form the throne of the divine mercy, we are told by Saint Francis de Sales, for if in the world there were neither sins to pardon, nor sorrows to soothe, nor maladies of the soul to heal, God would not have to exercise the most beautiful attribute of His divine essence. This was our Lord’s reason for saying that He came into the world not for the just but for sinners.[9]
7. Assuredly our faults are displeasing to God, but He does not on their account cease to cherish our souls.