I Trust in Thee

Below the image of the Divine Mercy, you will see the words “Jesus I trust in Thee”. I confess that despite my devotion to the Divine Mercy, I continually stumble over the simple act of trusting in the Lord.

Saint Augustine tells us to “pray as though everything depends on God, and work as though everything depends on you”. Fair advice, but I have a tendency to focus too much on the outcome of the latter rather than the former.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

This past Saturday, after a long (too long) time of being angry with the Lord, I resolved to go to Confession. It’s about a kilometer walk to Saint Leo where I normally go, and I prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet as I walked for the intention of a good Confession.

When I arrived at the customary place, I found this taped to the door:

The anger came flooding back. Inconvenience? Inconvenience?! This is my immortal soul we’re talking about here, buddy! How dare you cancel Confessions!

The later Confession time at St. Patrick’s wasn’t going to work, since it’s more or less in the opposite direction, and we needed to be at Holy Rosary at 4:30 to prepare for Mass. I posted the photo to my Instagram account with the hashtag #probablygoingtohell, and then I walked back home.

Did I trust in the Lord? No. I was too busy being angry – one of the very things that I had been going to Confess. Apparently I had not yet severed my attachment to that particular sin. I was angry that the Jesuit fathers had cancelled Confession, but I was also angry with God that he would answer my prayer for a good Confession with… no Confession at all!

So we went to Mass, and I didn’t receive Communion. Instead, I offered my anger and my sins up to the Lord.

The next morning before our long weekend hike, we dropped by Saint Joseph church at about 7:30 in the morning, and I had my Confession there.

It wasn’t just good – it was great!

Saint Joseph is an F.S.S.P. parish that exclusively celebrates the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite – so the sacrament of Confession I received followed the older rite. I’d never been absolved in Latin before.

That part was kind of neat. But better still, the priest offered me good counsel. He saw the connection between my disparate sins – a connection that I had not seen – and offered advice on how I might tackle the root of the problem.

I walked out of the confessional like I was bouncing on a cloud. Our 15km hike was a breeze after that. The pack may have weighed me down physically, but I was no long weighed down spiritually.

Even the pouring rain couldn’t get me down.

And what’s the lesson? I should have trusted in the Lord. I should have trusted that, though He was leading me through difficulties, it was to a better place than I would have been if I’d gotten my own way. After all, we’re told to pray “Thy will be done” and not “my will be done”.

Jesus – I trust in Thee! (At least, I do until the next time I screw it up.)