On trust in God and living in hope:

“Cultivate thoughts of confidence as long as it pleases God to give them to you; they honor God far more than contrary thoughts. The more wretched we are, the more is God honored by the confidence we have in him. It seems to me that if your confidence were as great as it ought to be, you would not worry about what may happen to you; you would place it all in God’s hands, hoping that when he wants something of you he will let you know what it is.

I do not know what you mean by despair: one would think you had never heard of God or of his infinite mercy. Hold such senti­ments in horror, and remember that all you have done is nothing in comparison with your want of confidence. Hope on to the end.

Pray that my faults, however grave and frequent, may never make me despair of his goodness. That, in my opinion, would be the greatest evil that could befall anyone. When we can protect our­selves against that evil, there is no other which may not turn to our good and from which we cannot easily draw great advantage....”

-- St. Claude de la Colombière, SJ,