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Many of these beginners want God to desire what they want, and they become sad if they have to desire God's will. They frequently believe that what is not their will, or that which brings them no satisfaction, is not God's will, and on the other hand, that if they are satisfied, God is too.

It is in that soul in which less of its own appetites and pleasures dwell that He dwells more alone, more pleased, and more as though in His own house, ruling and governing it.

Very often God is satisfied with our wish to labor for his glory, and how immense are my desires to do so.

Now let us talk about the detachment we ought to have, for detachment, if it is practiced with perfection, includes everything. I say it includes everything because if we embrace the Creator and care not at all for the whole of creation, His Majesty will infuse the virtues. Doing little by little what we can, we will have hardly anything else to fight against; it is the Lord who in our defense takes up the battle against the demons and against the world.

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.

We can lean on nothing but Our Lord, for He alone is immutable.

The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire . . . The best effects are those that are followed up by actions...when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it.

Oh how desirable is this union with God's will! Happy is the soul that has reached it. Such a soul will live tranquilly in this life, and in the next as well. Nothing in earthly events afflicts it unless it finds itself in some danger of losing God or sees that He is offended: neither sickness, nor poverty, nor death...for the soul sees well that the Lord knows what He is doing better than it knows what it is desiring.

They are too attached to their honor. . . . These souls, for the most part, grieve over anything said against them. They do not embrace the cross but drag it along, and so it hurts and wearies them and breaks them to pieces. However, if the cross is loved, it is easy to bear, this is certain.

We are like so many foolish peasant lads: we think we know something of Thee, yet it must be comparatively nothing, for there are profound secrets even in ourselves of which we know naught.

When I feel nothing, when I am incapable of praying or practicing virtue, then is the moment to look for small occasions, nothings that give Jesus pleasure...a smile or a friendly word, when I would much prefer to say nothing at all.

In this detachment the spiritual soul finds its quiet and repose; for, since it covets nothing, nothing wearies it when it is lifted up, and nothing oppresses it when it is cast down, because it is in the center of its humility; but when it covets anything, at that very moment it becomes wearied.