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Supreme Confidence

O voice of Christ, mysterious voice of grace that resoundeth in the silence of our souls, Thou murmurest in the depths of our hearts words of sweetness and of peace. In response to our miseries, Thou repeated the counsel so often given by the Divine Master during His mortal life: “Confidence, Confidence!”….Saint Thomas Aquinas defines confidence: a hope fortified by solid conviction…confidence has its source and root in faith..sacred writers designated these two virtues (faith and hope) by the same word: fides.

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Your souls wounded by misfortune, do not murmur over the abandonment in which you find yourselves reduced. God does not ask of you a sensible joy, impossible to your weakness. Just rekindle your faith, have courage, and, according to the expression dear to St Francis de Sales, in the “innermost point of your soul”, try to have joy.

Providence will eventually give you the right sign by which you shall recognize Its hour; It deprived you of all support. Now is the moment to resist the distress of nature. You have reached that hour in the office of the interior of the soul in which you should sing the Magnificat and put incense to burn. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice…The Lord is nigh!” Follow this counsel, you will feel the benefit of it.

–‘The Book of Confidence’, Father Thomas de Saint-Laurent

Magnificat

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.”

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