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When you feel as if you are about to lose your patience, or say something uncharitable, bring yourself back to Him. Let go of this natural inclination in order to please Him.

The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer-and don't forget this, because it's very important-should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will...The greatest perfection attainable along the spiritual path lies in this conformity.

The created will is not destined to be free to exalt itself. It is called to come into unison with the divine will. If it freely submits itself to this unison, then it is permitted in freedom to participate in the perfection of creation. If a free creature declines this unison, it lapses into bondage.

The hours of adoration before the Highest Good and the listening for the voice of the Eucharistic God are simultaneously "meditation on the Law of the Lord" and "watching in prayer." But the highest level is reached "when the Law is deep within our hearts" (Ps 40:8), when we are so united with the triune God whose temple we are, that his Spirit rules all we do or do not do. Then it does not mean we are forsaking the Lord when we do the work that obedience requires of us. Work is unavoidable as long as we are subject to nature's laws and to the necessities of life.

Mental prayer consists of what was explained: being aware and knowing that we are speaking, with whom we are speaking, and who we ourselves are who dare to speak so much with so great a Lord. To think about this and other similar things, of how little we have served Him and how much we are obliged to serve Him, is mental prayer. Don’t think it amounts to some other kind of gibberish, and don’t let the name frighten you.

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!

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.

That is what life in Carmel means: to live in God, contemplating His goodness and beauty, and dedicated entirely to the fulfillment of His blessed Will. Then every immolation, every sacrifice becomes divine; through everything the soul sees Him whom she loves and everything leads her to Him... it is a continual communion. All day long she surrenders herself to Love, by doing the will of God, under His gaze, with Him, in Him, for Him alone.

Thus you must undertake all things, agreeable or disagreeable, for the sole purpose of pleasing God through them.

If individuals resolutely submit to carrying the cross, if they decidedly want to find and endure trial in all things for God, they will discover in all of them great relief and sweetness.

St Paul says that ‘our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:29). If we remain continually united to Him by means of a simple, loving gaze of faith, if, like our adored Master, we can say at the end of each day, ‘I do always the things that please Him’ (Jn. 8:29) He will know well how to consume us and, like two little sparks, we shall go and lose ourselves in the immense fire, there to burn at our ease throughout eternity.

The real happiness in this valley of tears, is doing God's will in everything. Only the person who seeks happiness in this way - avoiding all worry about the difficulties, sorrows and sufferings with which one may be afflicted - will find that happiness.