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Speak to the Most Holy Virgin heart to heart. When you feel lonely, gaze at her and you will see her smiling and saying to you, "Your mother never leaves you alone."

If God is in us, and if God is love, it is inevitable that we be brothers; because love of our neighbor is the measure of our love for God.

Always remember to love your neighbor; always prefer the one who tries your patience, who tests your virtue, because with her you can always merit: suffering is love; the Law is love.

You know well that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.

It has not entered into the heart of man what God is like.

The God I serve is a living God... A life of prayer is the essence of the Carmelite vocation; the heart to heart communion that never ends, because when one loves, one no longer belongs to oneself but to the Beloved, and so lives more in Him than in oneself.

Always believe in Love. If you have to suffer, think that you are even more loved, and always sing in thanksgiving. He is so jealous for the beauty of your soul.... That is all He has in view.

The nothingness of me is strangely loved:
Sustaining ever
The all of love, my need is strangely here:
Departing never.

When I am in this state of spiritual dryness, unable to pray, or to practice virtue, I look for little opportunities, for the smallest trifles, to give pleasure to Jesus; a smile or a kind word, for instance, when I would wish to be silent, or to show that I am bored. If no such occasion offer, I try at least to say over and over again that I love Him. This is not heard, and it keeps alive the fire in my heart. Even should the fire of love seem dead, I would still throw my tiny straws on the ashes, and I am confident it would light up again.

Today I had the joy of offering Jesus several sacrifices with respect to my dominant fault, but how much they cost me! There I recognized my weakness. When I am unjustly reproved, I feel as though the blood were boiling in my veins. My whole being rises in revolt! ... but Our Lord was with me. I heard His voice deep down in my heart and then I was ready to bear everything for love of Him.

I am glad to recognize that when we love God our heart expands, and we can give incomparably more tender love to those who are dear to us than when our love is selfish and barren… Love is fed by and develops from sacrifice.

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!