Ave Maria Meditations
It is not really a question of trust in God at all, for we want very much to trust Him; it is really a question of our ultimate believe in His existence and His providence, and it demands the purest act of faith.
For my part, I was brought to make this perfect act of faith, this act of complete self abandonment to His will, of total trust and in His love and concern for me and His desire to sustain and protect me, by the experience of a complete despair of my own powers and abilities that had preceded it. I knew I could no longer trust myself, and it seemed only sensible then to trust totally in God. It was the grace God has been offering me all my life, but which I had never really had the courage to accept in full…
I could never find it in me to give up self completely. There were always boundaries beyond which I would not go, little hedges marking out what I knew in the depths of my being as a point of no return. God and His providence has been constant and His grace, always providing opportunities for this act of perfect faith and trust in Him, always urging me to let go of the reins and trust in Him alone. I had trusted Him, I had cooperated with His grace but only up to a point. Only when I reached a point of total bankruptcy of my own powers had I at last surrendered.
That moment, that experience, completely changed me I can say it now in all sincerity without false modesty, without a sense either of exaggeration or embarrassment. I have to call it a conversion experience; it was at once a death and resurrection.
+Fr. Walter Ciszek,
