“Especially when the skies of my soul are cloudy and my cross weighs more heavily, I feel the need to repeat to You: Father, I believe in Your love for me!” (from Mother Eugenia Ravasio’s prayer “God is my Father”).
Father, I believe in your love for me! This phrase can become an ejaculatory prayer that accompanies us on our journey of following Christ. By repeating it often, it can penetrate deep into our soul and become effective there.
As Mother Eugenia’s prayer says, this is especially important when our soul is in darkness and we are weighed down by many things, or when the cross we carry becomes too heavy. It is at such times that it is important to raise our eyes and say this confident prayer. If we have become accustomed to repeating it often as a prayer of the heart, then it will be all the easier to apply it in concrete situations.
The difficult thing when we are in a state of darkness is that we no longer find it so easy to access God and can become paralysed. This darkness often affects our emotional world in a special way and takes over. All agility seems lost and at the end of the tunnel there may be only hopelessness.
It is then that this prayer acts as an elixir, even if we say it ‘dry’, without feeling or joy. But it will be an important act of faith that will bring us back and remind us of the objective and real situation. Our Heavenly Father has certainly not withdrawn His love from us, but at times like these He wants to be close to His child.