Gaudete! The following verse is taken from the Epistle for the Third Sunday of Advent in the Ancient Rite:
Be nothing solicitous; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. (Phil 4:6)
This isn’t Hakuna Matata from The Lion King, as in “no troubles.” Solicitousness is the vice of excessive worry: Anxiety. And there is certainly no shortage of it today. The remedy for this is nothing less than total abandonment to the Divine Providence. What have you got to lose? Resolve to try it for a week, and see what happens. If it didn’t kill you, try for a month. Then three months.
God is in control. He is, right now, controlling every aspect of the physical universe. He knows where you are and what you are going through. If He stopped thinking about you for a nanosecond, you would cease to exist. So, while you very well may have “troubles,” you should turn them over to the Lord, and trust in Him. Trust also the future to Him. Use what troubles you have as a tool to draw yourself closer to Him, uniting your will with His.
This is exactly what I needed to read today.
Thank you very much, Mark