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We are so ignorant that what we have read and been told has not sufficed to teach us to disregard wandering thoughts, therefore I shall not be wasting time in instructing and consoling you about these trials. However, this will help you but little until God chooses to enlighten you, and additional measures are needed: His Majesty wishes us to learn by ordinary means to understand ourselves and to recognize the share taken in these troubles by our wandering imagination, our nature, and the devil’s temptations, instead of laying all the blame on our souls.

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.

To remain in prayer without obtaining any advantage is not lost time, but a season of great gain, because then we labor without interest, and only for the glory of God. And though at first it may seem as if we labored in vain, it is not so; but it is like what happens to sons who work on their father's estate, and who, though at night they receive not wages for the day's work, yet at the end of the year they receive everything.

Well, come now, my daughters, don’t be sad when obedience draws you to involvement in exterior matters. Know that if it is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots and pans helping you both interiorly and exteriorly.

Humility has an excellent feature: when it is present in a work, that work does not leave in the soul a feeling of frustration.

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.

If we plant a flower or a shrub and water it daily it will grow so tall that in time we shall need a spade and a hoe to uproot it. It is just so, I think, when we commit a fault, however small, each day, and do not cure ourselves of it.

It is very important to consult people of experience; for otherwise you will imagine that you are doing yourselves great harm by pursuing your necessary occupations. But, provided we do not abandon our prayer, the Lord will turn everything we do to our profit, even though we may find no one to teach us.

Humility has an excellent feature: when it is present in a work, that work does not leave in the soul a feeling of frustration.

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.

To remain in prayer without obtaining any advantage is not lost time, but a season of great gain, because then we labor without interest, and only for the glory of God. And though at first it may seem as if we labored in vain, it is not so; but it is like what happens to sons who work on their father's estate, and who, though at night they receive not wages for the day's work, yet at the end of the year they receive everything.

The devil through very small things drills holes through which very large things enter.