Day Four

Meditation

We can hope, and then we can have hope. it seems like the exact same thing, but it’s not. When we don’t get what we hoped for, we can become discouraged, even irritated or angry. Usually, that’s temporary. But sometimes that discouragement, irritation, or anger gets out of hand, and we fall into despair. When we despair, we turn away from God. We stopped trusting him, lose our faith in him, and con ourselves into believing that he no longer cares about our needs or even that he cares about us personally.

No one intentionally sets out toward hopelessness. It happens incrementally, so imperceptibly that often the severity goes unnoticed until something happens that stops us short and we feel the knot that has us hopelessly bound.

Words of Pope Francis

We are all exposed to sin, to evil, to be trail… We are fully conscious of the this proportion between the grandeur of God’s call and of our littleness, between the sublimity of the mission and the reality of our human weakness. Yet the Lord in his great goodness and his infinite mercy always takes us by the hand lest we drown in the sea of our fears and anxieties. He is ever at our side, he never abandons us. And so, let us not be overwhelmed by fear or disheartened, but with courage and confidence let us press forward in our journey and in our mission.

Prayer to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots

Our Lady, Undoer of Knots,

Please help me out of my hopelessness. From my human perspective, I see no way out. But, God, who knows everything, knows the way out. He has the power to fix whatever it is that’s caused this hopeless situation, to forgive my sinfulness, and to change my battered heart.

Mother, you are waiting for me to hand over this not to you, this not of [name the knot]. Deep down, I want to turn it completely over to you, but I’m afraid to do so. My fearfulness keeps me from truly hoping. My sinfulness keeps me from completely trusting in God’s goodness, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. I’m caught in this not that need your hands to lovingly undo.

Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, please take this not from me and begin working on it immediately. If I try to snatch back, gently remind me that it’s better off in your hands than mine.

I also want to unite my prayers with those of Pope Francis, asking that lasting peace may be granted to the world. Amen.

Say one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory Be for peace in our hearts, homes, and the world and for the intentions of the Holy Father.

Resolution:

Make a concrete resolution to take one step toward peace in your heart today.