Act of Abandonment to the Sacred Heart – Saint Claude de la Colombière
My God, I am so convinced that You watch over all who hope in You,
and that nothing can be lacking to those who expect everything from You,
that I have resolved to live from now on without any anxiety
and to cast all my cares upon You.
Mortals may pain me and strip me of everything;
demons may try to harm me;
but neither death nor adversity can take away the hope
I have in You and my confidence that I will be eternally happy.
Others may lose their earthly wealth and honor,
I have entrusted myself to You and will never lose my happiness.
If my heart wavers, my hope in You remains unshakable.
My God, although I see so much weakness in myself,
yet I hope entirely in You,
not because of my own merits,
but because of Your infinite mercy.
Amen.
The Act of Abandonment to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the brightest pearls of modern Catholic spirituality, deeply rooted in the 17th-century France. The author of this prayer of extraordinary intensity is Saint Claude de la Colombière (1641-1682), a Jesuit priest, theologian, and confessor to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Living in an era marked by theological rigors such as Jansenism—which tended to turn the faithful away from God by instilling a fear of damnation and a sense of chronic unworthiness—Saint Claude, inspired by the revelations of the Sacred Heart received by the mystic of Paray-le-Monial, promoted instead a revolutionary message based on boundless trust in divine mercy.
From a theological perspective, this prayer is not a simple exercise in devotional piety, but a true existential treatise on entrustment (the so-called Ignatian “Holy Indifference”). The Jesuit saint acknowledges human frailty (“I am so persuaded that You watch over…”) and contrasts earthly precariousness—made of material losses, spiritual attacks, and even one’s own moral limitations—with the unshakeable rock of God’s providence. Every verse is an act of voluntary dispossession of one’s anxieties, handed over entirely to the Heart of Christ, viewed not as a stern judge, but as the ultimate refuge of the soul.
Curiously, Saint Claude wrote this text not as an academic formula, but as a guide for his own spiritual life, especially during his exile in London as a preacher for the Duchess of York, a politically turbulent and risky period in which he even risked imprisonment and death because of his Catholic faith. The strength of this prayer lies precisely in its ability to disarm modern anxiety: proclaiming that “nothing can be lacking to those who expect everything from You” becomes, even today, a very powerful antidote against pessimism and existential stress, inviting the believer to a filial abandonment that transforms fear into an eternal and unshakeable joy.
