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If we want to live a life of love of God, we must not fail in our love towards our neighbor.

For, however dark a night may be, something can always be seen, but in true darkness nothing can be seen; and thus in the night of sense there still remains some light, for the understanding and reason remain, and are not blinded. But this spiritual night, which is faith, deprives the soul of everything, both as to understanding and as to sense. And for this cause the soul in this night says that it was journeying ‘in darkness and secure,’ which it said not in the other.

And even in sickness itself and these other occasions the prayer is genuine when it comes from a soul that loves to offer the sickness up and accept what is happening and be conformed to it and to the other thousand things that happen.

All the things that God disposes are as so many steps of that mysterious stairway that leads us to the eternal possession of our much desired end (eternal life). For this let us accept everything with indifference from the hand of God, and we shall be happy.

How serious life is:  each minute is given us in order to "root" us deeper in God, as Saint Paul says, so the resemblance to our divine Model may be more striking, the union more intimate.  But to accomplish this plan, which is that of God Himself, here is the secret: forget self, give up self, ignore self, look at the Master, look only at Him, accept as coming directly from His love both joy and suffering...

Hence, don't pay any attention to the fears they raise or to the picture of the dangers they paint for you...Should anyone tell you that prayer is dangerous, consider him the real danger and run from him. Don't forget this counsel, for perhaps you will need it. There will be danger in not having humility and the other virtues. But that the way of prayer be a way of danger — God would never will that.  It seems the devil has invented these fears, and so he has been skillful, apparently, in making some who have practiced prayer fall away.

Now I ask You, Lord, not to abandon me at any time in my recollection, for I am a squanderer of my soul.

I find that trials help very much in detaching us from this earth. They make us look higher than this world. Here below, nothing can satisfy us. We cannot enjoy a little rest except in being ready to do God's will.

I imagine her passing by, so beautiful, so calm and so majestic, so absorbed in recollection of the Word of God within her. Like Him, her prayer was always this: "Ecce. Here I am." Who? "The servant of the Lord," the lowliest of His creatures: she, His Mother! Her humility was so real, for she was always forgetful of self, free from all anxiety.

All Three Persons of the Holy Trinity dwell in the soul that loves Them ‘in truth’ ... keeping Their word. And when the soul has understood its riches, whatever natural or supernatural joy may come to it from creatures or even from God, only calls it to enter within itself, to enjoy the substantial good which it possesses and which is none other than God Himself.

O Lord! All our trouble comes to us from not having our eyes fixed upon Thee. If we only looked at the way along which we are walking, we should soon arrive; but we stumble and fall a thousand times and stray from the way because, as I say, we do not set our eyes on the true Way.

When you are burdened you are close to God, your strength, who abides with the afflicted.  When you are relieved of the burden you are close to yourself, your own weakness; for virtue and strength of soul grow and are confirmed in the trials of patience.