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Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.

In order to allow an entire human existence to be pervaded with divine life, it is not enough to kneel down once a year in front of the manger and allow oneself to be taken in by the spell of the Holy Night. One must be actively engaged with God one's entire life long, listen to the word which He spoke, which have been handed down to us, and then comply with these words. Above all, one must pray as the Savior himself has taught and so insistently emphasized again and again.

Think how Our Lady must have felt when, after the Incarnation, she possessed within her the Incarnate Word, the gift of God! In what depths of silence, of recollection, of adoration, she must have lived in the centre of her soul, in order to embrace that God whose Mother she was! He is in us. Let us keep close to Him in that silence, that love of the Virgin Mother.

The Redemption was decided in the eternal silence of the divine life and in the hiddenness of the tranquil dwelling of Nazareth; the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin while she was praying alone, and it brought about the Incarnation of the Redeemer.

Oh, how sweet Your presence will be to me, You Who are the supreme good! I must draw near You in silence pleased to unite me to You in … I rejoice in Your arms. Now I ask You, Lord, do not abandon me at any time in my recollection, for I know not the value of my soul.

Contemplation is perceived more frequently in the will under the form of love, than in the intellect under the form of knowledge.

It is in the effects and deeds following afterward that one discerns the true value of prayer.

One must pray much to remain faithful in every circumstance, above all for the many who have to go through trials more arduous than mine and are not so anchored to eternity.

Since He is always with me, prayer, the heart to heart exchange, should never end...I think that we must be so simple with God!

It is in prayer that the soul learns to know Jesus and thus to love him. Since love cannot be satisfied with difference but with equality, the result is union in similarity.

In truth, it is impossible that a heart which can find rest only in contemplation of the Tabernacle-and yours is such, you tell me- could so far offend Our Lord as not to be able to receive Him. . . . What does offend Jesus, what wounds Him to the Heart, is want of confidence.

The door by which we can enter this castle is prayer. It is absurd to think that we can enter Heaven without first entering our own souls -- without getting to know ourselves, and reflecting upon the wretchedness of our nature and what we owe to God, and continually imploring His mercy.