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My life begins anew each morning and ends each evening; beyond that I have no plans or intentions; that is, it may be part of one's daily duties to plan ahead, but one must never worry about the next day.

Full of love you sink your gaze into mine,

And bend your ear to my quiet words,

And deeply fill my heart with peace.

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.

...Sunday must be a great door through which celestial life can enter into everyday life, and strength for the work of the entire week, and how the great feasts, holidays, and seasons of lent, lived though in the spirit of the Church permit the soul to mature the more from year to year to the eternal Sabbath rest.

The "good Catholic" who, with self-satisfaction fulfills his duties, reads a good newspaper, votes well, etc. but for the rest does what he pleases, has a long way to go before he attains a life that is lived in and that comes from the hands of God, with the simplicity of a child and the humility of the publican. But whoever has once traveled that way will not turn back again.

To be a child of God, to do His will, not one's own; to place all our hopes and cares in His hands and no longer be concerned about one's self or future. Thereupon rest the freedom and the good cheer of the child of God.

Christ's love knows no bounds, is never ending, does not draw back before ugliness and filth. He came for sinners and not for the just, and if the love of Christ lives in us we ought to do as He did and set ourselves to seek the lost sheep.

The dark night becomes the school of all the virtues: it trains one to resignation, to patience, from the moment that one is faithful to the spiritual life without finding consolation and refreshment in it. The soul attains a high degree of love of God, inasmuch as it acts solely according to His will.

To be a child of God, that means to be led by the hand of God, to do the will of God, not one's own will, to place every care and every hope in the hand of God and not to worry about oneself or one's future. On this rests the joy of the child of God.

His blood is the curtain through which we enter into the Holiest of Holies, the Divine Life. In baptism and in the sacrament of reconciliation, his blood cleanses us of our sins, opens our eyes to eternal light, our ears to hearing God's word. It opens our lips to sing his praise, to pray in expiation, in petition, in thanksgiving, all of which are but varying forms of adoration, i.e., of the creature's homage to the Almighty and All-benevolent One.

"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.

To obtain the granting of requests that we have at heart, there is no better means than that of directing the energy of our prayer to asking for what is most pleasing to God.