Because the pilgrimage of life continues and we do not have a permanent dwelling here, it is a measure of elementary prudence to ask our Heavenly Mother for "a supply of energy in view of further stages", those that we have yet to travel. One of the greatest enemies of the wayfarer, that which takes away the most strength, is discouragement, the lack of hope in reaching the goal. It is not he who suffers difficulties and pain who falls into discouragement, but he who ceases to aspire to holiness and who, after a mistake, after a fall, does not get up quickly and continue walking.
He who has placed his hope in Christ lives by it, and already carries in himself something of the heavenly joy that awaits him, for hope is a source of joy and allows him to bear difficulties with patience; he prays with confidence and constancy in all the situations of life; he patiently endures temptation, tribulations and pain; he works hard for the Kingdom of God, in an effective apostolate, especially with those with whom he is most in contact.... Hope leads to abandonment in God, to divine filiation, because the Christian knows that He knows and counts on the situations through which we have to pass: age, sickness, family or professional problems.... He also knows that in every situation we will have the necessary help to get ahead. And it is Our Lady who brings forward these aids and graces, who multiplies them? She gives us her hand after a fall, after a moment of hesitation, facilitates contrition for our faults and puts in our heart the feelings of the prodigal son.
St. Teresa recounts that when her mother died, when she was about twelve years old, she realized what she had really lost, and "afflicted," writes the Saint, "I went to an image of Our Lady and begged her to be my mother, with many tears. It seems to me that, although it was done with simplicity, it has been worthwhile for me, because I have found this sovereign Virgin as soon as I entrusted myself to her and, finally, she has turned me to herself". With this simplicity and confidence we have to go to Our Lady in each of her feasts and her advocations. Today we turn to Our Lady of Montserrat, asking her to teach us the way of hope, which is the same as that of divine filiation. She, "seated on her throne, with her Son on her knees, seems to be waiting to embrace with Him all her children. Our spiritual pilgrimage is, in short, to attain divine filiation. Our vocation is a fact; by the incomprehensible predilection of the Father, he made us sons in the Son: Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Christ blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven; inasmuch as he chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love, and predestined us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the splendor of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved (Eph 1:3-6)."