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We Trust In Your Goodness...

Prayer is a wild thing, when it is real. I just prayed the craziest thing. I asked for some things, and then I said, "We trust in your goodness, even if we die." It's true, isn't it? I won't lie to you and say I'm fruitfully reflecting on my eventual death at every moment. But indeed, faith in Christ and in the resurrection of all of us from the dead means that death is not the end. This is exactly why St. Paul boasts and sings, "O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?" It doesn't erase the human experience of loss and its pain, but we do not grieve as those with no hope. And the substance of hope is exactly this: to move forward, in the reality of God's goodness. God is trustworthy. In simplicity, this is living faith distilled.

I've been saying "we" a lot in prayer lately. I suppose that if we really do have "mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won," I never am praying alone.

I'm just a sinner, without doubt or qualification. Yet I believe. I do not see, but I believe. We'll get through this, to goodness on the other side. We know this because Goodness has said so. If you can't take that to the bank, there is nothing you can.

Jesus, Hope of sinners, have mercy on us!
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