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We have to be on our guard against wanting to judge for ourselves what point we have reached in the way of pure love. Only God knows this. What we recognize of ourselves, also of our faults and failings, is only the illuminated part on the surface. The deep roots are also hidden from us. God, who knows these, can purify them.

Have we truly prayed "in the name of Jesus," i.e., not just with the name of Jesus on our lips, but with the spirit and in the mind of Jesus, for the glory of the Father alone, without any self-seeking? The day on which God has unrestricted power over our hearts we shall also have unrestricted power over his.

The soul ought to consider aridity and darkness as fortunate omens; as signs that God is beside it, freeing it from itself, taking the initiative out of its hand.

Through every sincere prayer something happens in the church, and it is the church itself that is praying therein, for it is the Holy Spirit living in the church that intercedes for every individual soul "with sighs too deep for words." This is exactly what "authentic" prayer is, for "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." What could the prayer of the church be, if not great lovers giving themselves to God who is love!

Charity liberates the will from everything, imposing as a duty to love God above all else. This however is possible only when anxious desire for creatures is removed.

Since God is love, that which He creates to His image is love, and the relationship between Father and Son is but the loving gift of self and union in Love.

To belong wholly to God, to give oneself to Him, to His service, for love, this is the vocation, not only of all the elect but of every Christian; whether consecrated or not, man or woman.

Then gradually, he becomes very small and humble; he grows patient and indulgent toward the splinter in strange eyes because the beam in his own is brought into being; and, finally, he also learns to be patient with himself in the inexorable light of the divine Presence and to surrender himself to the divine mercy which can take care of all that ridicules our energy.

Everything with which the soul occupies itself on the natural plane should be rooted out; thus it can be taught to know God, placing all its satisfaction in Him alone.

Hope creates an emptiness in the memory constraining it to occupy itself with something it does not yet possess. It teaches us to hope for everything from God and for nothing from ourselves or from other creatures; to hope for eternal happiness from Him and therefore to renounce every pleasure and possession in this life.

No earthly maternal joy resembles the bliss of a soul permitted to enkindle the light of grace in the night of sins. The way to this is the cross. Beneath the cross the Virgin of virgins becomes the Mother of Grace.

"To watch in prayer"- this is to say the same thing that Elijah said with the words, "to stand before the face of God." Prayer is looking up into the face of the Eternal. We can do this only when the spirit is awake in its inmost depths, freed from all earthly occupations and pleasures that benumb it. Being awake in body does not guarantee this consciousness, nor does rest required by nature interfere.