Divina_Misericordia_(Eugeniusz_Kazimirowski,_1934)

From my morning reading:

May people today claim to love Jesus and call themselves Catholic, but they neither trust in Jesus nor in his Church. This is why I believe he wanted the specific phrase — Jesus, I trust in you — on the bottom of the Divine Mercy image. It could have read: “Jesus, I love you,” or “Jesus, I adore you,” or “Jesus, I praise you,” but he was very specific about what he wants. He wants trust. Without trust, we can’t really be devoted to him. For it is trust in Jesus that tests if our love, adoration, and praise can go the distance.

Trusting in someone means you have confidence in them. The word confidence when broken down means with-faithTrusting in God, therefore, is faith (belief) in action. 

[…]

Trust requires allowing God to lead us in ways that we don’t fully understand. Trust requires the mystery of the Cross and a willingness to die in the service of God. And Satan will have none of that.

To trust is to have more than just knowledge of Jesus. It requires an intentionalsurrender from the will to all that he is and all that he taught. And it is this lack of volitional faith (trust) in our midst today that causes many people to identify themselves as “spiritual persons” who believe in Jesus but want nothing to do with the “organized religion” of Catholicism. But we must remember that Satan is also a spiritual person who wants nothing to do with the organized religion that Jesus founded.

– Donald H. Calloway, MIC in Under the Mantle: Marian Thoughts from a 21st Century Priest

I needed to read this on so many levels this morning. I love the Divine Mercy image and the Chaplet, though love doesn’t equate with “finding them easy.” I don’t. I find them incredibly difficult.

But as someone wise used to say, “Nothin’ worth doin’ is easy.” I don’t necessarily agree with that wholeheartedly, but I think it speaks to the fact that there are things worth struggling through and for.

And this is one of them.