My Lord, I have no hope but in Your Cross. You, by your humility sufferings and death, have delivered me from all vain hope.
My Hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore let me not trust in visible rewards.
My Hope is in what the human heart cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feelings of my heart.
My Hope is in what the hand has never touched. Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers, because Death will loosen my grasp and my vain hope will be gone.
Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health or strength or ability or human resources. If I trust You, everything else will become for me strength, health, and support.
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence (from Thoughts In Solitude)