O my God, you and you alone are all-wise and all-knowing! You know, you have determined everything which will happen to me from first to last. You have ordered things in the wisest way.
You know what will be my lot year by year till I die. You know how long I have to live. You know how I shall die. You have precisely ordained everything, sin excepted. Every event of my life is the best for me that could be, for it comes from you.
You bring me on year by year, by your wonderful Providence, from youth to age, with the most perfect wisdom, and with the most perfect love. . .
I know, O Lord, you will do your part towards me, as I, through your grace, desire to do my part towards you. I know well you never can forsake those who seek you, or can disappoint those who trust you. Yet I know too, the more I pray for your protection, the more surely and fully I shall have it. And therefore now I cry out to you, and entreat you, first that you would keep me from myself, and from following any will but yours. Next I beg of you, that in your infinite compassion, you would temper your will to me, that it may not be severe, but indulgent to me.
Visit me not, O my loving Lord—if it be not wrong so to pray—visit me not with those trying visitations which saints alone can bear! Pity my weakness. . . . I leave all in your hands, my dear Savior—I bargain for nothing—only, if you shall bring heavier trials on me, give me more grace—flood me with the fullness of your strength and consolation, that they may work in me not death, but life and salvation.
J.H. Newman, Meditations on Christian Doctrine XII: 2
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