O Key

O KEY OF DAVID’s city, scepter of the house of Israel, what you open none can shut, and what you shut none can open, come!  Bring the prisoner out of his dungeon where he sits in darkness and the shadow of death!
 
 
“O love, O key of David,” prayed St. Gertrude, “unlock and open to me, then, the holy of holies, that, sent in by you, I may gladly, without delay, see the God of gods in Sion, whose face my soul desires and much yearns for.”  Jesus, the holy and true one, has the key of David as the Book of Revelation tells us, but what is it that moves him to unlock and open the door to us?  Gertrude’s answer is immediate and certain: confidence in God.  It is the presence or absence of confidence that, more than any other disposition, affects the Divine Tenderness.  God is vanquished by trust.  As Gertrude teaches, sharing an insight she received from Jesus:

“This eye of my beloved which pierces my heart is the confidence which she ought to have in me---that I know, that I am able, and that I am willing to assist her faithfully in all her miseries; and this confidence has such power over my goodness that it is not possible for me to abandon her…Let her throw herself on my protection with a firm hope…Each can at least overcome his diffidence if he has not received the great gift of confidence by reciting from Scripture, if not with his whole heart, at least with his lips, ‘Although he should kill me, I will trust him.’"

At another time she was praying for some persons and said to the Lord, “What shall I add to these prayers to make them yet more efficacious?” No answer came…Then finally our Lord turning towards her with a countenance full of sweetness replied, “Confidence alone can easily obtain all things.”

And so with Gertrude let us trust with an absolute trust in Jesus’ words: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you.”  How greatly Jesus wishes to open the door to us.