Saint Gertrude's Boundless Confidence in Our Lord Supreme, unstinting trust in God's mercy, and boundless confidence in His love, are keys in obtaining 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 because it is through our unreserved confidence in Him that 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. . . . when men hope great things from Me I will always grant them more than they expect." Saint Gertrude had this boundless confidence which opens the Heart of Jesus wherein awaits 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." [7] O, yes, Jesus is the 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. Many times He told the Saint 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." [8] We tend to distrust God because we compare Him with ourselves. If only 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 this sweet confidence. In all things, Gertrude had recourse to Jesus just as a small child depends entirely on his mother. Nothing, in her eyes, was too trivial to be recommended to Him. For instance, having lost a needle in a mound of straw, she beseeched Our Lord 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." She instantly 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 asked Him. 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 Divine help. 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." [9] 7. SAINT GERTRUDE THE GREAT: HERALD OF DIVINE LOVE, TAN BOOKS, p. 17.   8. Ibid., p. 18. 9. Ibid., p. 19. Excerpts Published on the web with permission of Tan Books. The above image is in bad repair, beyond fixing, but we decided to use it anyway. Forward for Her Special Graces E-MAIL HOME----------------PRAYERS AND DEVOTIONS www.catholictradition.org/Gertrude/saint-gertrude3.htm