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A little drop of simple obedience is worth a million times more than a whole vase of the choicest contemplation.

Let us unite to make our days a continual Communion; let us awake in love, and all day long let us surrender ourselves to love by doing the will of God, under His eyes, with Him, in Him, for Him alone; let us give ourselves uninterruptedly and in whatever way He wills. Then when night comes, after a dialogue of love which has never ceased in our hearts, let us fall asleep still in love. It is a consuming fire; let us do our Purgatory in this fire!

I understand clearly that through love alone can we become pleasing to God, and my sole ambition is to acquire it.

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.

It is that much harder to let what belongs to us be taken without asking for it back. But the moment we accept this, we feel how light the burden is.

In spirit adore Him! This is to have the heart and thoughts fixed on Him, a spirit fully knowing Him in the light of faith. Adore Him in truth, which is to say, by our works, for it is above all else by our actions that we prove true; to do always that which is pleasing to God our Father, for we are His children.

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.

Let’s concern ourselves with our neighbor and with serving him, even though it may be repugnant to do so. In this way we’ll make sure that the throne of our heart is occupied by God our creator.

These aridities, then, make people walk with purity in the love of God. No longer are they moved to act by the delight and satisfaction they find in a work, as perhaps they were when they derived this from their deeds, but by the desire of pleasing God.

What you most seek and desire you will not find by this way of yours, nor through high contemplation, but in much humility and submission of heart.

For often it is God's will that His elect should be conscious of their misery and so He withdraws His help from them a little -- and no more than that is needed to make us recognize our limitations very quickly. They then realize that this is a way of testing them, for they gain a clear perception of their shortcomings, and sometimes they derive more pain from finding that, in spite of themselves, they are still grieving about earthly things, and not very important things either, than from the matter which is troubling them.

If we are determined to submit ourselves and to carry the cross, we shall find in it great refreshment.