St. Thomas Aquinas says "prayer has its... efficacy of obtaining from faith and confidence." (2.2q.83,a.15)
St. Gertrude agrees with St. Thomas that "unlimited confidence" is of key importance according to Tan Books:
Blind trust in God’s mercy, unlimited confidence in His love, is one of the secrets to obtain sanctity. The Holy Fathers have always taught that the measure of our hope and confidence is the measure of the graces which we receive from heaven. They have realized that, through our unreserved confidence, God is most honored and glorified. Nothing will be denied to an unlimited confidence. Our Lord revealed: “It is impossible that anyone should not receive all that he has believed and hoped to obtain. It gives Me real pleasure when men hope great things from Me and I will always grant them more than they expect.”
Saint Gertrude understood that confidence is the key which opens the treasures of the infinite mercy of God. To her confidence alone she attributed all the gifts she received, and she invited all to place boundless confidence in our Savior in order to receive from Him immeasurable graces. “All that I have received,” she affirmed, “I owe to my confidence in the gratuitous bounty of God.” Yes, Gertrude knew that Jesus is an infinite Treasure placed by the Eternal Father at the disposition of all, and that it is His supreme delight, as Savior, to distribute His gifts to those who trust in Him. He frequently complained to the beloved of His Heart of man’s want of confidence.
To a religious who had long prayed in vain for a particular favor, Jesus revealed how pleased He was with Gertrude’s boundless trust in His goodness. “Why dost thou not act like Gertrude, My chosen virgin?” Our Lord inquired of the nun. “She is so firmly established in My Providence that there is nothing which she does not hope for from the plenitude of My grace. Therefore, I will never refuse her anything.” Alas! we creatures have too little knowledge of God’s kindness, love, and mercy! Our distrust arises because we compare God with ourselves. Oh, that all hearts would realize that Jesus is all love, all mercy. He has treasures of grace for all, but few come to bear them away by means of their confidence.
In all things, Gertrude had recourse to Jesus as a child has to its mother. Nothing, in her eyes, was too trivial to be recommended to Him. On one occasion, having lost a needle in a pile of straw, she besought Him to find it for her. “O dear Jesus,” she said, “vainly, indeed, would I search for this needle. It would be lost time. Please get it for me Thyself.” Extending one hand, and turning away her head, she immediately found the needle between her fingers.
Again and again, Our Lord encouraged this confidence so dear to Him. “O Jesus, what should I add to these prayers to make them yet more efficacious?” Gertrude once asked. Turning to her with a countenance full of sweetness, Our Savior replied, Confidence alone easily obtains all things! . . . Once when St. Gertrude was troubled with temptations, she implored the Divine assistance. Our Lord, in His exceeding mercy, spoke thus to her: “Anyone suffering from human temptations, who flees to My protection with firm confidence, belongs to those of whom I can say: ‘One is My dove, My chosen one out of thousands, who has pierced My Heart with one glance of her eyes.’ And this confidence wounds My Heart so deeply that were I unable to relieve such a soul, it would cause My Heart a sadness which all the joys of heaven could not assuage . . . The confidence that I truly have the power, the wisdom and the goodness to aid a soul faithfully in all her miseries, is the arrow which pierces My Heart, and does such violence to My love that I can never abandon her.” [http://www.tanbooks.com/doct/gertrude_great.htm]
The Work of God website gives St. Francis De Sales take on this subject:
By St. Francis De Sales
All that remains is for us to state the necessary conditions to pray well.
I know indeed that the ancients who treat this matter cite a great many
such conditions; some count 15, others eight. But since this number is so
large, I limit myself to mentioning only three.
The first is that one be little by humility;
the second, that one be great in hope;
and the third, that one be grafted onto Jesus Christ crucified.
Let us speak of the first, which is nothing other than that spiritual
mendicancy of which Our Lord says: Blessed are the mendicant in spirit, for
theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. [Cf. Mt. S:3]. And although some of the
Doctors interpret these words thus: How happy are the poor in spirit, these
two interpretations are not opposed, because all the poor are mendicants
[beggars] if they are not proud, and all mendicants are poor if they are
not avaricious. In order to pray well, then, we must acknowledge that we
are poor, and we must greatly humble ourselves; for do you not see how a
marksman with a crossbow, when he wishes to discharge a large arrow, draws
the string of his bow lower the higher he wants it to go? Thus must we do
when we wish our prayer to reach Heaven; we must lower ourselves by the
awareness of our nothingness. David admonishes us to do so by these words:
When you wish to pray, plunge yourself profoundly into the abyss of your
nothingness that you may be able afterward, without difficulty, to let your
prayer fly like an arrow even up to the heavens. [Cf. Ps. 130:1-2; Sir.
35:21].
Do you not see that nobles who wish to make water rise to the top of their
castles go to the source of this water in some highly elevated place and
then convey it by pipes, forcing it to descend for as great a distance as
they wish it to rise? Otherwise the water would never rise. And if you ask
them how they made it rise, they will answer you that it rises through this
descent. It is the same with prayer; for if you ask how it is that prayer
can rise to Heaven, you will be told that it rises there through the
descent of humility. The spouse in the Song of Songs' astonishes the angels
and makes them say: Who is this who comes from the desert, and who rises
like a column of smoke, laden with myrrh and frankincense and with every
perfume known, and who is leaning upon her Lover? [Cf. Song 3:6; 8:5].
Humility in its beginning is a desert, although in the end it may be very
fruitful, and the soul that is humble thinks itself as being in a desert
where neither birds nor even savage beasts dwell, and where there is no
fruit tree at all.
Let us pass on now to hope, which is the second necessary condition for
praying well. The spouse coming up from the desert rises like a shoot or
column of smoke, laden with myrrh. This represents hope, for even though
myrrh gives off a pleasant odor, it is nevertheless bitter to the taste.
Likewise, hope is pleasant since it promises that we shall one day possess
what we long for, but it is bitter because we are not now enjoying what we
love. Incense is far more appropriate as the symbol of hope, because, being
placed upon fire, it always sends its smoke upward; likewise, it is
necessary that hope be placed upon charity, otherwise it would no longer be
hope, but rather presumption. Hope, like an arrow, darts up even to the
gate of Heaven, but it cannot enter there because it is a virtue wholly of
earth. If we want our prayer to penetrate Heaven we must whet the arrow
with the grindstone of love.
Let us come to the third necessary condition. The angels say that the
spouse is leaning upon her Lover; we have seen that for the last condition
it is necessary to be grafted onto Jesus Christ crucified. The [Divine]
Spouse praised His spouse, saying that she was like a lily among thorns.
She, in turn, answered Him: My Lover is like an apple tree among the trees
of the woods; this tree is completely laden with leaves, flowers and fruit;
I shall rest in its shadow and receive the fruit which falls into my lap
and eat it, and having chewed it, I shall relish it in my mouth, where I
shall find it sweet and agreeable. [Cf. Song 2:2-3]. But where is this tree
planted? In what woods will we find it? Without doubt it is planted on
Mount Calvary, and we must keep ourselves in its shadow. But what are its
leaves? They are nothing other than the hope that we have of our salvation
by means of the death of the Savior. And its flowers? They are the prayers
that He offered up to His Father for us [Cf. Heb. 5:7]; the fruits are the
merits of His Passion and Death.
Let us remain then at the foot of this Cross, and let us never depart from
there, so that we may be all saturated with the Blood which flows from it.
St. Catherine of Siena once had an ecstasy while meditating on the Passion
and Death of Our Lord. It seemed to her that she was in a bath of His
Precious Blood, and when she came to herself she saw her dress all red with
this Blood, but others did not see it. We, too, must never go to prayer
without being similarly bathed; at least it is necessary to be thus bathed
in the morning at our first prayer. St. Paul, writing to his dear children
[Cf. Rom. 13:14], told them to be clothed with Our Lord, that is to say,
with His Blood.
But what is it to be clothed with this Blood? Do you not know that we say:
There is a man clothed in scarlet; and scarlet is a fish. That garment is
made of wool, but it is dyed in the blood of the fish. [Cf. Oeuvres, vol.
VIII, p. 144]. In like manner, even though we are clothed with wool, by
which it is understood that we perform good works, these good works--though
from us--have neither worth nor value if they are not dyed in the Blood of
our Master, whose merits render them agreeable to the Divine Majesty.
When Jacob wished to obtain his father Isaac's blessing, his mother made
him prepare a kid in venison sauce because Isaac liked it. [Cf. Gen. 27:
9-29]. She also made him wear the skins of the kid on his hands, because
Esau, the elder son to whom the blessing belonged by right, was all hairy.
She even made Jacob wear the scented garment destined for the eldest son of
the home. She led him thus to her husband, who was blind. When Jacob asked
for the blessing, Isaac felt his hands and cried aloud: Ah, but I am in
such pain! The voice I hear is that of my son Jacob, but the hands I feel
are those of Esau. And having smelled the scented garment, he said: The
good fragrance that I have savored has given me such delight that I give my
blessing to my son. So too we, having prepared this spotless Lamb [Cf. 1
Pet. 1:19] and having presented Him to the Eternal Father to satisfy His
taste, when we ask for His blessing He will say, if we are clothed with the
Blood of Jesus Christ: The voice that I hear is Jacob's, but the hands
(which are our evil deeds) are those of Esau; nevertheless, because of the
delight with which I savor the fragrance of his garment, I give him My
blessing. Amen. [http://www.theworkofgod.org/Library/Sermons/F_Sales.htm#THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER March 29, 1615]
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He want you to do next. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet
Francis Notes:
- Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
"[T]he Pope... WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See."
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said "the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church."
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
- "If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
- "Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
- LifeSiteNews, "Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers," December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows "sexually active adulterous couples facing 'complex circumstances' to 'access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'"
- On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
"The AAS statement... establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense."
- On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
"Francis' heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents."
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
- Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: "212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted...Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden" [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
- Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times "Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003": http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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